


Con-Roach

by autistic_zombie_boy, Rumpeltyltskyn



Series: Roach Adventures [2]
Category: Z Nation (TV)
Genre: Adventure, Autistic Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Found Family, Graffiti, Humor, Zombies, tagger
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2019-08-20 19:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 42,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16561649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autistic_zombie_boy/pseuds/autistic_zombie_boy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rumpeltyltskyn/pseuds/Rumpeltyltskyn
Summary: Roach has been wandering for days without water and food.  When he’s just about ready to give up, he meets up with a couple conmen who offer to help out.  But they might be more trouble than they’re worth— but then again, you could say the same thing about Roach.





	1. Chapter 1

Roach walked down the barren street, kicking up dust as he moved forwards.

“ _‘M countin’ sheep but runnin’ out,_ ” he sung quietly to hisself, tryin’ to stave off insanity that was slowly taking its toll on his mind, “ _as time ticks by_ … nhggn, fuck…”

He needed to find water soon, his throat was raw, his body felt numb and like it was being put through the wringer at the same time, he felt like death and he thought singin’ ‘bout it would help him.

It wasn’t.

Helping that is. It wasn’t helping.

Green Day was failing him.

He groaned and looked up, it had been about four days since he saw that cheese wheel and it had been two since the four wheeler gave out and he ran out of water.

And it had been an entire day since his iPod had died.

He’s said it before and he’ll say it again.

“The apocalypse sucks.” He groaned softly, “’M gunna die out here… at least I got to tag some cool shit before I die.”

As if some shitty god heard he spotted it. A group of men slowly closing in on two other men on the side of the road.

Six against two, it would be stupid to butt in on them but...

It don’t look like no fair fight to him.

“HEY!” He shouted as loud as he could despite the dehydration he had been facing wreaking havoc on his throat, “the hell is goin’ on?”

As he got closer he found that none of the men had guns drawn, even still they looked intimidating but he had a pistol on him and an ax to go along with his thunderball. He could take them if need be, he just hoped they didn’t notice how he was shaking from exhaustion or how he wasn’t wearing shoes…

All eight men turned to him, several were sneering and the two looked only mildly shocked. 

Four of them started speaking at once, their voices all grated on his ears like a corrupted casset tape. 

Roach pulled out his gun, aiming it towards the sky, the threat was clear, ‘shut up or I’ll attract zombies’.

“One at’a time,” he said like he wasn’t the only person there that could still be considered a child. He put on a tough-guy face and his lips curled into a snarl instead of his usual grin, “Now tell me. What’s goin’ on ‘ere?” 

One of the men cornering the other two spoke first, “Beat it kid, we’re just getting our money back for a faulty product.” 

Faulty product?

What the hell are they talkin’ about?

“Drugs?” he wondered aloud, one of the men laughed. “The hell you buy then? What’s got yuns so worked up ya willing ta kill two men?”

“These two,” the first guy said while throwing his arm back at the cornered duo, “claimed to have ‘ _The Murphy_ ’ with them! Got one of us killed!”

_The what?_ Why did that sound familiar?

“The fuck are ya talkin’ about?”

“ _The Murphy!_ ”

Roach held back the urge to just scream. So he did what he used to do when his teachers were treating him like an idiot.

“Okay, I think we can agree, I ain’t got no clue what a ‘The Murphy’ is, tell me,” he spelled it out, his gun never leaving the air. 

“The-the man-The cure!! The cure with the bounty on his name!” a different guy shouted.

Ah, that’s why it sounded familiar. He almost went after that but it seemed too far fetched and too much like a death trap to him. If he still had his friends then maybe, but alone it seemed too stupid, even for him.

“Y’all believe that shit?” Roach asked, his nose crinkled at the thought of six grown adults wasting ammo (or whatever else they paid with) on some apocalyptic-urban legend. What were they planning on doing once they got ‘The Murphy’, what kind of payment could they expect? It was the end of the world as it once was, money didn’t matter, money didn’t exist and it wouldn’t for a long time.

Maybe they wanted a statue. 

He hoped they wanted a statue, he hoped whoever got ‘The Murphy’ to wherever it was he was going got a statue just so he could vandalize it. 

He’d make the headlines as the guy who fucked up the first statue of the new world.

Wait, he wasn’t paying attention to what they were saying now.

“Okay, I don’t care,” he interrupted, “Also, why would y’all pay fer somin’ if ya can’t see the product? Cause what I’m gettin’ is yer idiots fer buyin’ inta this and I’m a idiot fer standin’ here when I was runnin’ from a hoard!”

“... Hoard?” the first guy spoke up again, this time sounding less pissed about losin’ supplies and more worried about an oncoming zombie hoard.

“Yea… last time I looked I saw a rush’a Zs headin’ ‘is way… probably bout an hour ‘way?” Roach was fibbing through his teeth, ain’t no hoard comin’ their way, but he was slowly discovering he’d rather not waste ammo on dumbasses that believe in some myth told by two guys that if you looked up ‘snake oil salesmen’ in the dictionary there would be a picture of them tacked on.

The six men all looked at each other, clearly wondering if he was to be believed. Roach hoped against all odds that at least one of the men was the better safe than sorry type and they left peacefully. 

“When you last look?”

Roach shrugged. “Hours ago? Day ago? Time ain’t too clear no more, lot of ‘em though, watched them trample a shed wit’ binoculars ‘for I lost ‘em…”

Please be enough to drive them away, please be enough, please be enough.

They stood in silence for all too long, if he were alone he’d just start singing but that may make him look nuts, which if he went about the entire situation a whole ‘nother way wouldn’t be too bad. Right now though he had to look sane, like he wasn’t slowly dying, like he wasn’t so on edge it made his teeth hurt, he had to look cool and collected. 

The men looked at each other, silently communicating.

“Alright, we are leaving,” the first guy said before looking at the scammers, “but if we ever, ever, see your faces ‘round here again, well, you won’t live to see another day.”

Roach schooled his face and kept his gun raised as the men filed past him, they made their way back into the woods surrounding the road. It was only once they were gone did he lower his arm. 

He eyed the two men he had saved. They were both pretty roughed-up looking, but most in the apocalypse were. The more unkempt it the two was almost painfully thin, and he stepped over to Roach, looking him over with an amused look on his face. “Lookit this, Sketch! Our hero’s got no shoes.”

The other guy (Sketch?) had a crooked grin on his face. He looked a bit more put-together, in a weird, trying-to-be-stylish-with-garbage kinda way. “No shoes, huh?”

Roach frowned, holstering his gun back into its place on his belt. “Yeah, no water either,” he replied, voice raspy.

The man smirked. “Say no more,” he said, pulling his canteen off his shoulder and tossing it to Roach. “Drink up, kid. But take it easy, you look like hell.”

He sipped slowly, resisting the urge to gulp it down quickly. He had made that mistake before, during Black Summer. Water doesn’t stay down if you’re dehydrated and drink too fast. “You guys don’t look to awesome yerselves. Who are ya, anyway.”

“Ah, how rude of me,” he started with a dramatic flourish. “The names Sketchy, Sketchy McClain. And that there,” he started, motioning to his skinny companion, “Is my right-hand-man, Vernon, but you can call him Skeezy.”

“Sketchy and Skeezy, hm,” he repeated the names to himself. Appropriate, he thought. He took another sip of water. “‘M Roach,” he introduced, wiping his mouth. 

Sketchy nodded. “Roach, eh? Good name, kid, good name.”

Well, that was a pleasant surprise. Most people questioned his choice in nickname. Though, he supposed you couldn’t say much with names like ‘Sketchy and Skeezy’. “Thanks,” he replied shortly.

“So,” Sketchy started, tapping his chin thoughtfully, “Would you like some help with the whole ‘no-shoes’ situation? Because my pal and I can hook you up,” he offered.

Roach wrinkled his nose at the prospect. “Not sure I can trust you two. ‘Specially since I just saved yer asses from a buncha idiots you ripped off.”

The other one, Skeezy, actually snickered at that. At least he had a good sense of humor. Or he was just high, a safe bet by the looks of him. Sketchy offered a practiced, pleasant smile.

“Hey, I get where you’re comin’ from,” he assured, putting his hands up in a peaceful gesture. “We know you’re aren’t an idiot, we’d never try to put one over on someone like you.” His smirk returned. “I mean, you really were convincing with that whole zombie-hoard story, I’m impressed. You got talent, Cockroach.”

He frowned. “It’s just Roach.” All he got in reply was that same grin, so he dropped it. “You didn’t buy my story then.”

“Hey, kid, when you run enough cons you can see one comin’ a mile away,” Sketchy said. “You were pretty damn convincing though, I’ll give you that.” Roach just rolled his eyes, wondering what exactly he was being buttered-up for.

“Ya said ya could help me out with my shoe-situation?” he reminded pointedly. He was gettin’ tired, like, real tired, like he had been running on nothing but pure adrenaline and now that his body got what it was looking for it just wanted to crash. And he was crashing hard. 

Sketchy went to say something but he was interrupted. “Uh, Sketchy, he don’t look too good,” Skeezy interrupted with a hint of concern, and Roach felt his knees buckle. Bony arms caught him behind.

The world grew fuzzy around him but he clung to consciousness, still not sure he could trust these two not to take everything he had left on him.

“What should we do with him?” he heard Skeezy ask, but it sounded muffled and far off. “He helped us, it would be kinda shitty to leave him behind.”

“Yeah, he’s just a kid,” Sketchy agreed. “Come on, bring him with us.”

Roach barely had a chance to wonder where they were bringing him before everything went black. 

—

The first thing he noticed was that he was laying on something moderately soft. Not a bed, not that thick, he could feel the floor through it. A sleeping bag maybe. Someone was talking, but the words didn’t really make sense to his ears at first.

He tried to open his eyes but his lids felt almost stuck shut, way too dry. He lifted his arm to wipe at them, clearing them enough to blink open his eyes.

“Hey! Look who decided to join the land of the living!”

Roach turned his head to the source of the voice. His vision was still blurry and his mind was slow to catch up, but after a moment he recognized the figure as one of the men he had rescued. Sketchy, right. 

Roach swallowed, wincing, and partially sat up. “Water?” he rasped pitifully.

“Here you go, kid,” Sketchy said, pressing a tin cup of water into his hands. This time, Roach drank it greedily. “How’re you feeling?”

Roach finished off the water. “Like shit. But better, thanks,” he said. He took in his surroundings for a moment. He was on the floor of a big van, like one of the ones used by business before the outbreak. There was a ton of supplies scattered around, and Sketchy sat on an unlabeled box in front of him. “Where’s the other guy?” he asked. 

“He’s running re-con,” Sketchy replied, and as if on cue, the back of the van flew open, flooding the area with light and making Roach cover his eyes and squint.

“Found ‘em!” came a familiar enthusiastic voice. Eyes adjusting, he was finally able to look over and see Skeezy standing at the back of the van and tossing something across the way to Sketchy.

Sketchy inspected the objects momentarily. A pair of sturdy-looking leather boots. “These look about your size, don’t they?” he asked with a wink, tossing them across to Roach. 

“Should be…” Roach muttered as he caught them. He looked up at the two with a genuine smile, “Thank you.”

They didn’t say anything but Roach heard them talking as he flopped back down on the sleeping bag? His fingers found the edge and a zipper, yeah, definitely a sleeping bag. 

He was still exhausted, he wanted to curl up under a rock and let it crush him, he wanted to feel the pressure on his soul and let it consume him. 

The overdramatic part of him said he wanted death but he would ignore that for now.

“So Cockroach-”

“Just Roach.”

“Alright, so Just Roach, me and Skeezy have a bit of a… proposition for you.” Sketchy said and Roach cracked an eye open to look at the man.

“Yea…?” He was a bit wary, understandably so in his opinion. All of his experiences with unfamiliar adults, in the apocalypse and before it, had ended badly and part of him was still a scared kid even if he was growing older as the days passed by. 

“Well, your traveling alone correct? What if we offered you some company? Companionship! A young lad like yourself could run into trouble-”

Roach snorted, he ma always told him trouble was his middle name and his first name might as well have been ‘I’m gonna git in’.

“-and well… We can teach you how to get out of it!”

It sounded too good to be true, traveling with a group again. How long had it been since he talked to someone who didn’t have the intention to hurt him? Must’ve been the old lady he and Spike help when Spike was still alive… had that been months ago or years ago? He couldn’t tell, time was a funny thing. All he knew was he still had a friend and a mohawk when it happened.

“What’s t‘e catch?” There’s always a catch. Even people who don’t want you dead have catches to their kindness and Roach might not be the smartest but he was tired and weary and a little scared if he was to be honest. He didn’t know these two but he knew that they were con men and that he was still too exhausted to fight back and that they probably took his weapons. 

“Well, we went through yer stuff.” Skeezy said, straight to the point, no use in lying he guessed.

“Expected of ya, find somethin’ useful?”

“Yup,” Skeezy exclaimed as he pulled something out of Roach’s bag- they better not have fucked with his ipod- “This!”

…

_The fuck is that?_

“My… my notepad? Whatchu fin’ in there?” All he had in that this was sketches of tags and a few random art pieces. Nothin’ important, nothin’ too pretty neither.

“Well, young sir, our proposition is for you to spruce up our ride!”

Roach wasn’t expecting that, he was expecting a lot of things to be said but not that.

“”Ow yew know I can do that?” Roach asked, he could definitely do that but they seemed so sure he could without even seeing him work.

“You had more cans of spray paint on you than you did medical supplies.” Sketchy said, he wasn’t wrong but-

“That don’t mean ‘mm any good at it.” Roach had a good point and he knew they knew that but they didn’t look to be phased by it, in fact Sketchy looked like he expected to hear that.

“Kid, you sign your sketches with the same signature as your tags.”

Oh…

“You’ve seen my tags?” Roach asked, feeling both a little proud and a bit embarrassed. On some level he knew actual people would see his art, he never painted in any hidden places, he tagged the white house for fucks sake! But still… it felt weird to be recognized. What piece did they see? Was it the cheese wheel he did? The liberty bell? Mount. Rushmore? One of the random walls he did? Is this what it felt like to be an artist? If the world hadn’t gone to shit would more people see his art and recognize him? Would people like his stuff?

With anxious questions buzzing through his still exhausted brain, thinking he should go back to sleep after they finish talkin, he almost missed what Sketchy said next.

“Hell yeah we’ve seen your stuff kid! All of it is full of passion and… I want that,” Sketchy talked a lot with his hands Roach observed, the man seemed to drive every point home with hand movements, no wonder people believe the whole ‘The Murphy’ bullshit he apparently sold to some survivors. He was nodding along without realizing like he was already gonna do what the man wanted.

Either that or he was nodding off cause not a moment later he let out a jaw breaking yawn which caused Sketchy to trail off.

“Y’know what? Why don’t you sleep, we can discuss my commission after you rest up, mmkay?” Sketchy said before the engine suddenly cut on, and Roach was nodding in agreement. His smart brain was telling him not to sleep cause he didn’t truly know what they wanted from him but his tired brain told the rest of him to fuck off so he could crash and nap again. Another part of his brain said he was too hungry to sleep yet but he was used to sleeping hungry. Maybe he could eat something after he woke up, maybe they had food or he could just eat the old eraser he had in his bag. 

__

When Roach woke up again for the second time the world was a lot brighter and louder and this time he loved and hated it. He wasn’t overwhelmed and tired; instead he was awake and completely overwhelmed and buzzing with useless energy. He was erratic.

Well, he was always erratic but this was a different erratic. He felt like he could climb a mountain or juggle or something. 

Except he couldn’t because he was so fucking hungry it woke him up.

His stomach growled louder than a zombie as he sat up and looked around the van. They were moving and Skeezy was the one driving, Sketchy was looking back at him through the little door between the driver’s cab and the back with a raised eyebrow.

“Hungry?”

Roach nodding, a bit unsure if he could speak yet, he wanted to make a noise but he’d rather not risk accidentally triggering something and clucking like a chicken at him, so he just hummed instead.

“Hhmm-hmm-hmm.” Maybe food will fix that. He kept humming softly as Sketchy climbed through the small door and tossed a protein bar of sorts at him.

As much as he missed people he forgot how awful it was to interact with them daily. Especially when his brain wasn’t working right. He felt fine but his brain wasn’t fine just yet and he didn’t want them to judge him for it. He didn’t want to know if they would react badly to any of his ‘quirks’ as his ma would call them.

“So kid, ready to talk commissions?” Sketchy sat down right across from him, grabbing Roach’s own bag and sliding it over to him. 

Roach grabbed his bag after taking a liberal bite out of the protein bar, the texture was absolutely shit and he had to force himself not to gag at it, but the taste wasn’t that bad despite it obviously being expired. He was as ready as he could be so he shrugged.

“Alright!” And then Sketchy began talking. He told Roach to just sketch out whatever came to mind as he told his tale but his tale was unlike like any other tale Roach was familiar with.

It had a beginning, a middle, and an end, sure. But this tale was different from any other tale as this tale started in the middle, had an end in the middle, another middle again, a beginning at the end, and a sequel that told the story in a different way.

Now Roach won’t lie to anyone and say he’s smart or good at following stories or good at drawing conclusions, no, he got lost on even the most straightforward of stories on his best days.

Sketchy didn’t tell his story in a linear path, though. No, he circled back and changed events as he went and changed the story so it wasn’t how it was when he started. 

And Roach stopped paying attention after the third circle back to how they apparently started their first ‘business venture’. 

So instead he drew Sketchy telling his story, it wasn’t good but he could only hope that it was close to what Sketchy wanted from him.

To be shown as a hero…. 

Or somethin’.

Roach supposed that he could add his name behind his portrait and do it in a monochrome or whatever the thing is where it’s done in opposite colors. He’d need more paint and maybe a color wheel and some cardboard if he did that.

“What do you think, kid?” Sketchy asked when he was finished. If Roach followed the story at all he’d compliment him on his persuasive skills, but he didn’t so he couldn’t do that. Instead he just held up his half finished piece and waited for a reaction as he took another bite of the protein bar.

Sketchy just blinked at him, maybe he didn’t like it but it was okay, Roach could fix whatever he had a problem with pretty easily. Or at least that’s what he told himself, he had never drawn something for another person outside of his old friend group and his ma. He didn’t do any art for school ‘cause his teachers always said the same thing, “If you can focus on this you can focus on school!”

“Huh… you do that just now?”

You watched me do this? Roach thought, I was right here doing this while you were talking?

“Do you think you could… Kid, if I get you the paint can you do that, that exactly, on this van?” Sketchy took the notepad from him and pointed at the picture for emphasis.

Roach willed his brain to work with his mouth for just one word.

“Sure.”

__ 

It was a surprisingly long time till Sketchy told Skeezy to pull over, and during the entire ride Sketchy stayed in the back with Roach. Even when he was talking to Skeezy he stayed back with him.

It was nice.

“So, kid,” Sketchy started and Roach looked up at him, “how old are you anyways?”

Roach pursed his lips, he really didn’t know… he stopped counting the days when he realized that they didn’t really matter much anymore. Who cares if it was Thursday or Saturday or April or May anymore? It’s not like anyone had jobs or anything to get to. Birthdays no longer mattered and he had no holidays to remember anymore.

“17,” he felt like that was a good estimate. “Maybe.”

He showed his notepad to Sketchy. He was playing around with designs for the picture. Different fonts for Sketchy’s name and whatever else.

“So you were in school when the outbreak happened?” Skeezy asked, putting the van in park.

“Uh, yeah, I was on a field trip actually.” He could remember that day very clearly, even if he forgot everything else that day would stick with him forever. “To an art museum. What about you two?”

“We were both at work when Day One hit,” Sketchy started, motioning between him and Skeezy. “I was selling this guy a Dodge Caravan when my boss just out of nowhere runs and tackles my customer to the ground,” he recounted. 

Roach tapped his pencil against the paper, nodding along to the story. “You were a car dealer?” he asked. How appropriate.

“You bet,” Sketchy said, crossing his legs and leaning back.

“I was an exterminator,” Skeezy added. “First zombies I ever saw were zombie rats I’d just killed,” he said, shuddering dramatically. Roach couldn’t blame him. Rats made great pets but zombie rats were the worst. The buggers could chew through _anything_.

“So I run out of the dealership after piking my boss,” Sketchy continued, “right into the street. Zombies are everywhere, people are screaming, sirens are wailing, the whole shebang.” He grinned. “And who runs right into me, outta the rat-infested apartment building across the street?” Roach looked over to Skeezy, who wiggled his fingers in a wave. “So Skeezy and I grab a car and book it the hell outta the city.”

Roach considered the story for a second. “Real nice meet-cute,” he mumbled, not looking up from his pad. Skeezy lost it up in the front seat, eliciting a small smirk from Roach, glad he got a laugh. 

Sketchy just made a noise somewhere between a no and a laugh before standing up and clapping his hands together.

“Anyways! We at our destination?” he asked loudly. If Roach were an expert at reading people he’d say that Sketchy was embarrassed, but he wasn’t, so he couldn’t say that.

“Yeah, we’re here,” Skeezy said as he turned off the van, still snickering slightly.

Roach followed Sketchy’s lead and stood up, wobbling only slightly on unsteady legs. “Where ‘re we?” 

“You’ll see.” Oh, that made him nervous. “You need paint to do the thing right? Well, all that was in your bag was a can of purple and yellow.” Oh, that made him less nervous.

But, yeah, he needed more paint, especially if Sketchy wanted it to look good. He was almost out of the colors he had anyways.

“Alright,” he said, stopping only to grab his thunderball and ax from his bag. He still wasn’t sure where his gun was but he didn’t want to ask just yet. He slipped the thunderball into his pocket and tossed the ax between his hands to remember the feel of it. He rarely used axes but he didn’t know the layout of where they were going and he wanted a smaller weapon to use just in case he didn’t have room for his main.

Skeezy opened the back door for them and Roach winced at the sunlight for the second time. He should try to find some sunglasses or something, it was too bright out.

About ten yards from where they were parked was a white concrete building that reminded him of the building his ma used to go to to get more clay and glaze for her pieces and classes. He smiled to himself at the memories; he would think more on it if it hadn’t had been for Sketchy clapping him on the shoulder.

“Okay! There should be some paint here? Right?” Sketchy asked, already making his way to the front door. In his hand he had Roach’s gun.

Ah, so that’s where it is, he thought. At least he knew now.

“I dunn, what is this place?” Roach followed after him, walking behind Skeezy who, unlike his partner, wasn’t in as much of a rush. 

“Just said it’s an art supply store,” Skeezy gestured back behind them to a sign on the side of the road, “nothin’ else on the sign.”

Roach thought back to all the places he raided for spray paint, most of them were tractor supplies and art stores so this seemed promising, especially since it looked like a big box store.

It looked promising and it was promising, once they cleared the zombies out of the entrance. Surprisingly there were few, despite how big the building was. They started to look around. Sketchy went one way and Skeezy the other while Roach took the second floor. 

The place was huge! It smelled like paint and zombies and it was the greatest place Roach had ever been. The entire second floor was dedicated to different types of paint: acrylics, watercolor, oil, and everything in between. The very back wall had about three shelves of only spray paint and a few zombies guarding them. They were easy to take out and Roach left his ax in the last ones skull by his feet.

He crouched down to look at the bottom row of colors. Each shelf was a different brand he guessed, the big problem was he didn’t know which brand he should pick, or how the colors changed depending on the brand.

Maybe there was a chart nearby he could use?

Or he could just test them out on the floor…

__

“We couldn’t find any- Oh! You found the paint!” Skeezy said, turning into the aisle where Roach was currently pondering colors and brands. 

“Uh-huh.” The floor in front of him had color swatches painted on it with their respected cans on them. There were a lot of repeat colors he could leave behind and he had already filled the basket he found to its top. “How much spare room do y’all got in that van?”

He was thinking as practically as he could in the face of the one thing he still was happy about, he wasn’t gonna take more than he could carry for one but he also didn’t want to leave behind colors he hadn’t seen before.

Hmm… 

“We got room, find a lot?” 

A lot was an understatement, normally when he raided a place they had about one shelf at the most and the colors were all pretty basic. He was a little overwhelmed by what he found.

“Yeah…” he pushed the basket towards Skeezy, “These are the colors I definitely want, but I don’t know what colors Sketchy wants for the van so I may have to leave these, plus, I dunno how much’ll fit in my pack…” 

He picked up a can of “NITRO” and sprayed a yellow swirl on the floor. He wanted that color too… 

“Need a new mask too…” he muttered that part to himself, he lost his other one after the cheese wheel and had been using an old bandana to cover his face but he’d rather not keep inhaling paint fumes if he could help it.

He sighed. This was too overwhelming, he almost wanted to ask Skeezy to tell him a set amount of cans he could take or choose for him and have that be it. But he also wanted to make the choice for himself. 

“Well, we can probably fit one of each color at least into it.”

Roach nodded. “Ya sure yew got the room?” 

Skeezy shrugged, grabbing another basket. “Don’t see anythin’ else that we need back there. Sketchy wants the piece in green, which greens are good?”

“Uh… Emerald, Whizbang, Swamp…” Roach shrugged and watched Skeezy put said cans in the basket, “None of them look bad, but those are the ones that’ll probably work best.”

Skeezy nodded. “Might as well grab them all then. Take what you can down to Sketchy and I’ll bring down the rest.”

__

Roach watched Sketchy and Skeezy talking in front of the van from the corner of his eye for a moment before turning to the blank wall in front of him. He held a can of midnight blue paint in his hand, he wasn’t gonna leave this place without at least testin’ his new colors. 

The question was…

What to paint?

He could do another alien thing, he tagged a lot of shit with aliens, or he could do a blue zombie. But no idea felt right… 

Except... 

He took one more glance at Sketchy and Skeezy, both hunched over a map or something in the back of the van and he uncapped the paint. 

He could work with that idea.

He need practice anyways.

Thirty minutes and five different colors later he was done. It wasn’t his most creative piece, in fact it was one of the few tags he took from real life, the others being of his friends and one of his ma, but he was proud of it.

“Cockroach-” 

“Just Roach!” 

“You done over there?”

Roach took a step back, giving the piece a once over before nodding to himself, “Yeah, I think so. Whatchay’all think?”

The once white wall was now a mixture of blues, gold, and silver. Sketchy and Skeezy were shown from the waist up, back-to-back with zombies circling them. A pretty picture if Roach said so hisself.

“Well damn, Cockroach-”

“Is that gun’ stick withchu?”

“You’ve got talent! I told you Skeezy! We picked the right kid for the job!” Sketchy said, gesturing emphatically to the painting.

Skeezy nodded eagerly. “You know, I bet we’re the only guys in the apocalypse with our own mural like that,” he said with a huge grin on his face.

“We’re flattered, kid, real flattered and very impressed,” Sketchy started, hooking an arm around Roach’s shoulder and dragging him back to the van once all of his paint cans were in his backpack, “Now here’s what I have in mind for the van…”


	2. Chapter 2

Roach shook the spray can as he looked over the painting in front of him. He touched up a spot here, there, switching colors every so often. Wasn’t long before there was nothing left to do on this piece. Not long at all. 

He spared a glance over his shoulder at where Sketchy and Skeezy had pieced together some mismatched chairs and a table, even jury-rigged an umbrella up to cast them a bit of shade. He turned back to his work, and glanced down at his shoes- the payment for his service. They were weird dudes, kinda chaotic, always with a trick up their sleeves, and Sketchy always sounded like he was trying to sell you something. But they were kinda fun. And it was nice to have other people around to talk to sometimes or just have your back. It was a lot easier to relax and focus on art when you weren’t worried a zombie might sneak up and eat you. 

But he was almost done. And he doubted they’d wanna keep sharing all their supplies with him once he was finished with what they wanted. He couldn’t really blame him, everyone was a bit more careful ever since Black Summer. 

He dropped his can to the side, inspecting his painting carefully again. Everything looked fine. But he knew if he stepped away for a bit he’d probably catch something that needed adjusting.

He stepped over to Sketchy and Skeezy’s table, flopping down in the empty chair.

“How’s it comin’, Cockroach? Almost done?” Sketchy asked from where his feet here kicked up on the table.

“Just Roach,” he corrected with no real conviction. At this point it just felt more like an inside joke or something. “Yeah, should be done soon. Just takin’ a break.”

Sketchy grinned, reaching down into a bag and tossing Roach an old but unopened 20oz bottle of soda. “Well, it’s looking awesome,” he assured, making a ‘cheers’ gesture with his own bottle.

Roach gave the drink a small sip. It’d been god-knows-how-long since he had a real, cold, bubbly soda. This one was flat and warm and probably not the way it would have tasted when it was still before its expiration date, but it still tasted pretty great to him. Probably because he missed sugar. 

“Is there any other stuff yew want painted after the van?” Roach asked, making a point of being off-handed about it. 

Sketchy shrugged. “I don’t have anything in mind,” he admitted, “How about you, Vernon?” he asked, looking back at his partner.

“Nah, I’m good,” Skeezy said. “Unless you can do tattoos. Been thinkin’ about gettin’ one.”

Roach just shook his head at that. Seemed like a bad idea, to get a tattoo in the middle of the apocalypse, with such a high risk of infection. But he didn’t voice that. He was pretty used to Sketchy and Skeezy’s dumb ideas at this point. Some of them were fun. 

Some sounded reckless even to him.

He looked over the van and picked out the little things he could fix up before he… well, before he was done and he had to leave.

Roach wouldn’t lie and say he hadn’t gotten pretty attached to the two con artist sitting beside him. He was a social person naturally, not overly so, but he didn’t like being alone, he liked having someone to talk to. But he knew, he knew deep down that this wouldn’t last.

They gave him shoes as payment for decking out their ride. After he was done he’d take his paint and his ipod, which they actually found a changer for, and he’d hit the road again. 

He took a sip of his flat soda and thought to himself, Maybe I’ll head to California, see if that ‘ _The Murphy_ ’ bullshit is true.

The dark green outline was off. And Sketchy’s beard needed more light green. 

He should have asked for some cardboard or something so he could get those crisp edges but he could manage. It would take him longer but that would just mean he could stay for longer. And that was fine by him.

He set his half drank soda on the table and got back up. He should go ahead and fix that. 

Roach would say that he wasn’t that picky about his art. Normally he would just leave the tag as it was, mistakes and all. It wasn’t normal that he had the luxury to be picky and he thought it gave the piece character. Also, normally he was running from zombies and staying in one place for too long just… didn’t work for him. He would rather be on a constant moving path.

“ _I’ve got to, bumbum, runaway_ ,” he sung softly to himself, uncapping the dark green, Swamp, spray paint, “ _Bumbum…_ ”

At least when he was alone he could sing as loudly as he wanted and no one could tell him to shut up and that he was attracting zombies.

“ _Tainted love, ohooh,_ ” he hummed as he adjusted the minor details. The more he sung, the less he worried about the future. 

He ended up singing four songs to himself before he felt like he couldn’t fix the picture anymore. All he needed was an overcoat to protect the picture and he was done…

He could wait for the paint to dry before he did the overcoat though. They didn’t have to know he could do it wet.

“Whatcha’ll think?” he asked, stepping out of the way of his newest masterpiece, “Good?”

Part of him wanted them to say no, maybe they would see something wrong with it that he could change.

“Incredible! Is it done?” Sketchy exclaimed and stood up to get a closer inspection, “How’d you do this so quick?”

Roach rubbed his chin, tugging at the small amount of facial hair he had out of embarrassment. “Thanks, and yeah… All I need to do is give it a topcoat and it needs to be dry for that.”

Sketchy nodded, looking the picture up and down. He looked like he wanted to touch it but he no doubt knew touching wet paint was a big no-no. 

Roach watched him for a moment before he sat back down beside Skeezy. He took a large gulp of his soda and waited to see if Sketchy had anything else to say. Maybe, if he didn’t find anything wrong with the picture, he’d ask for another. The chance was slim but it was there and it made Roach feel a little better to think about that possibility. 

“So,” Skeezy started, “how long have you been doin’ that?” He motioned to the van. “You seem pretty experienced.”

“My ma said I was born to be a little vandal,” Roach shrugged, “I started off taggin’ barns ‘n tract’rs wit’ my friends back ‘ome. My ma was ‘n artist so I’d take ‘er paint and go ham wit’ it.” He leaned back and tugged at the bandages around his arm, “I got ‘n artist soul as she’d say and a delinquents spirit ta match.”

“Your mom spray paint too?” Sketchy asked, turning around to face them.

Roach crinkled his nose and shook his head. “Naw, not like me, no. She was a sculptor, did lots of pottery and taught classes on it ‘for the world went ta shit.”

He must’ve looked sad or something because Skeezy reached out and squeezed his shoulder. 

“Well, your mother sounds like she was a lovely woman,” Sketchy said, sitting back down in his spot.

“She was.” He smiled, “She really was.”

Sketchy nodded along before he changed the subject, “Say, kid, have I ever told you about how me and Skeezy met a celebrity zombie?”

__

 

It took, on average, 2 or 3 hours for spray paint to dry completely. 

And Roach spent that time listening to some of Sketchy’s far fetched tales from the apocalypse.

“So, it’s me and Skeezy, we are surrounded by zombies and thousands of more are coming over the horizon, and what can we do but run?” Sketchy said and Roach nodded along. His story was almost a complete lie, the last one about the zombie shooting contest that got overrun by a Zunami. And it was even less believable than some of Sketchy’s stories pre-apocalypse, and all of those sounded like complete lies.

“Yer tellin’ me, you two first had to fight your way out of Dollywood wit’ not’in’ but ya wits and then you found a zombified Dolly Parton who could still sing? Aw naw, I call bullshit.” Roach shook his head, he knew at this point Sketchy may be runnin’ out of stories and he may be spicing up his less cool ones but Roach definitely thought they may have been responsible for the death of Dolly Parton. “Tell me what really happened.”

“Hey! I’m not lying, Cockroach-”

“Just Roach.”

“Cockroach,” Sketchy ignored him, “would I lie to you?”

“Yes.”

Sketchy sighed like he couldn’t believe Roach would think that but he didn’t say anything else while Skeezy sniggered and Roach got up to check the paint. It should be dry by now, the sun was beating down on them today so it had probably dried a while ago.

Roach was right, the van was dry as a bone and he only had to give it the topcoat. He adjusted his bandana back over his mouth and nose and grabbed the can of clear paint.

He took his time with it, making sure to give it a full, even coat. Maybe he was stalling for too long, but he didn’t want to be done yet. Even still, he couldn’t stretch this out forever.

“It’s’all done,” Roach said while taking a step back. He tugged his bandana off his face and stuffed it in his bag, recapping his clearcoat before dropping that in the bag as well. He was gonna have to collect all the colors he wanted to keep and re-figure out what he could take with him. It wouldn’t be long until they parted ways. He held back the urge to sigh.

He was gonna miss those two. Other than his old friends, he didn’t like most of the people he ran into. Everyone had an agenda and, despite how sketchy these two were, he trusted them. Which was stupid of him ‘cause once you trust someone you get attached to them, so now he was regretting, just a bit, coming along with them. 

Damn I hate goodbyes, Roach thought, Just gotta rip it off like a bandaid I suppose. I’ll wait to see and make sure they don’t need me no more before I go.

“Sure you don’t need me’ta paint nothin’ else?” he asked, “need me to do the side of the van?”

“Nah, kid,” Sketchy said, “I think it looks good as-is.”

Roach nodded. He could tell when enough was enough and they had clearly had enough of him. They didn’t have any use for him anymore and he had enough experience with other survivors to tell when he wasn’t needed or wanted. 

“Alrighty then,” he said, more to himself than to them, and he started to pack up. 

He’d take the reds, oranges, and metallics cause those were his favorites colors and he’d leave the rest with them. They could probably find a good use for them, Sketchy said he made a cool bat once, maybe he could make a weapon outta them. ‘Sides, Roach couldn’t fit more than a dozen cans in his backpack anyways.

He should probably start walking now, before it got too late. He could double back to the town they drove through and search for some shelter and supplies. He felt too awkward to ask for a water bottle to take on the road with him and he didn’t want to deplete their supplies.

Stuffing the last of his chosen paints into his bag, Roach jumped slightly at a hand on his shoulder. He looked behind him to see Skeezy looking over his shoulder curiously. “Packin’ up already?” He asked. “We’re not leaving quite yet.”

“Yeah but,” Roach started, shrugging his shoulders slightly, “I finished the painting, so…”

“Oh! Oh, right,” Skeezy said, nodding. “Right. Y’know, um…”

“Hm?”

Skeezy scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “You, uh, need anything? Could give you some water or, some a those protein bars,” he offered, plastering a big grin on his face. 

Roach kicked at the dust idly, feeling his heart sink a little. “Some water I guess?” he mumbled. He probably just should have snuck away or something, it woulda been a lot less uncomfortable for everyone.

“Hey, Sketchy!” Skeezy called, starting back towards where his partner had sat back down at the table. “You got any water?”

Roach followed a few steps behind him, fingers curled tightly around the warn straps of his backpack. Sketchy tossed Skeezy a bottle of water, who handed it back to Roach. Skeezy leaned against the table, giving a very small nod towards Roach, seemly communicating something without words. 

Sketchy looked back towards him, feet up on the table and crossing his arms over his chest. Roach wanted to say his look was calculating, but it was hard to say, he was never much good at reading faces. 

“Looks like you’re gettin’ ready to move on, Cockroach,” Sketchy commented, arching an eyebrow at him.

“Roach.”

“Mhm.”

He looked down, kicking a pebble. “Guess so. Finished the van.” He motioned back towards the painting.

“Guess you’re gettin’ a little tired of us, huh?” Sketchy asked, sounding almost mildly amused. “We’ve been told we’re a bit, much,” he said with a gesture for emphasis.

Roach blinked, a bit confused. “Well, um… kinda? I, I mean, not really,” he stuttered. “Ya guys are weird but I’m not tired a ya.”

“You headed somewhere specific then?” Skeezy asked, head tilted curiously.

“N-not really,” Roach said, shifting on his feet, trying to figure out where this conversation was heading.

Sketchy spread his arms out. “Then what’s the rush? No one said you gotta head out as soon as you finished,” he said, donning a grin.

“I- I just thought- uh. What?” Roach felt a bit like his head was spinning.

“Look,” Sketchy started, “We’re always looking for a bit of extra talent. And you, kid, have got talent. So if you, wanna stick around… I’m sure we can make an arrangement that’s mutually beneficial.”

Roach was silent for a moment, mulling over the words to make sure he hadn’t misunderstood the offer. “I can stay?”

Skeezy smiles at him. “If ya want!”

Roach didn’t know if he believed him, this sounded too good to be true. 

Why would they keep him around, and how could he benefit them? They also didn’t actually know him. He was a lot of trouble and they hadn’t even seen him at his worst.

Granted he didn’t know them that well and he hadn’t seen them at their worst but still.

“Why?” he asked.

“What do’ya mean ‘why’?” Sketchy asked, his smile falling just a bit, “Does there have to be a why?”

Roach shrugged, “Usually there is, people don’t really… like me enough to keep me around.”

That sounded more self deprecating and depressing than he intended and he didn’t mean to sound that way but it was the truth and he couldn’t change the way people perceived him.

“Well, kid, we are the exception to that!” Sketchy said, “Listen, Skeezy and I are the last people to judge, and you can quote me on that.”

Roach felt a lot lighter hearing that, he still didn’t know if he believed him but after a glance at Skeezy who was nodding along in agreement he figured that they at least wanted him to stay for a bit. 

“Yeah, okay, I’ll stick witch’all,” Roach said, his backpack sliding off his shoulder and he dropped it on the ground. “Where ‘re y’all planin’ on headin’ next any’ays?”

A glimmer entered Sketchy’s eye at the question, and the mischievous smirk returned to his face. “I’ve been thinking… I wonder whatever came of Graceland…”


	3. Chapter 3

Roach hummed from the back of the van, his headphones were mostly broken but they still worked. He’d have to find some new ones soon though.

“What song you listenin’ to?” Skeezy asked. It was only the two of them awake at the moment. It was the dead of night and Skeezy was driving while Sketchy caught some Zzzs and Roach…

Roach was just full of energy. 

He was a light sleeper- who wasn’t any more?- and he also just… rarely was calm enough to sleep so he didn’t sleep more than he absolutely needed too. 

“ _Devil Went Down Ta Georgia_ ,” he answered, and Skeezy nodded.

“You got a wide taste in music, ya know that?”

“Mmhmm,” Roach hummed in affirmation, “Long as it got good sound I’ll listen to it.”

The three of them had learned a lot about each other. They learned the Roach physically couldn’t stay still and silent at the same time unless something was wrong with him and he learned that Skeezy was completely in love with Sketchy and Sketchy was definitely in love with him too but he wouldn’t know what to do with a genuine human emotion if it came with an instruction manual. Not that either had said as much, but Roach read between the lines. He might not be good at reading people but even he could tell. 

“ _Granny does ya dog bite_ \- Hey? How far are we fr’m Graceland an’ways?” Roach wouldn’t lie and say he was having the time of his life sprawled out in the back of a van on a sleeping bag that now smelled like spray paint and just a bit like gasoline. 

“Uh… we should be there by tomorrow afternoon? Tomorrow night at the latest.” Skeezy said. It was weird how travel still took forever despite the lack of traffic. But zombies and cars cluttering up the road will delay ya a good bit. 

That and Sketchy and Skeezy weren’t allowed in a few ‘towns’ anymore and they didn’t want to risk gettin’ themselves killed and Roach agreed with them on that.

It was fun to hear about the various reasons they got driven out of ‘towns’ though.

They were quiet for awhile except for Roach humming along to his music until he spoke up again.

“I’m actually from Tennessee.”

“Really?” Skeezy asked, turning in his seat to catch a look at Roach.

“Yup, ain’t lived nowhere near Graceland though,” he said, “Ain’t never been, this’ll be fun.”

“Where’d you live? If you want to we could-”

“I lived on the other side of the state. ‘Sides, I a’ready went back there once, don’t ‘ave a reason ta go back there,” Roach said, “ain’t nothing left there.” 

“Ah… alright…”

The rest of the night was spent in silence except for the occasional commentary and Sketchy’s snoring.

__

 

“Hey, Cockroach, wake up!” someone said above him, something nudging his shoulder.

“‘Sss just Roach,” he muttered back, rolling over onto his back and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, “‘Ere ‘re ‘e?” His accent was a lot thicker as he was waking up and he could hear Sketchy laughing.

“We have arrived at our destination!” Sketchy stuck his hand out to help Roach up, his back was sore and it was no doubt from sleeping on the hard floor of their van.

Roach squinted at him and wrinkled his nose as he slowly got up. Where was their destination again? He was too tired for this, really.

“... Elvis?”

“Not quite!” Sketchy clapped his hands together. “Had to make a little detour, slight change in plans for the time being,” he explained. He seemed to be rummaging around the shelves along the walls of the van.

“Hm? ‘Ow come?” Roach mumbled through a yawn.

Sketchy pulled out a red gas canister, giving it a slight shake. Sounded empty. “Outta fuel I’m afraid. But nothing we can’t fix with a little scavenging!”

Roach just nodded, wiping the sleep from his eyes. Finding enough gas to keep a car going was the bane of the apocalypse. 

“Mmm, mm, alright. ‘E raidin’ a place ‘r are ‘e syphonin’ off the road?” He asked. He was shit at syphoning gas but he at least remembered the tips Monty gave him.

“ _Don’t actually drink the gas, Roach,_ ” Monty would say and Roach would try to not do that.   
Gas tasted pretty bad anyways.

Were there health problems with swallowing gasoline?

Probably, he couldn’t really call a doctor and ask though.

“We came across a gas station,” Sketchy said, “Might still have somethin’ left in it, it’s pretty secluded so maybe?”

Roach nodded. A lot of gas stations were surprisingly still pretty stocked if they were secluded enough. Maybe it was ‘cause no one wanted to go into places that advertised ‘ _BAIT AND DEER JERKY_ ’ or something.

They had a good reason to, one time Roach went into a place like that the guy running the place ended up being nuts and that was before the apocalypse.

He was Roach’s uncle but he was still nuts.

__

“So, this place looks… like…” Roach started, waving his arms around, “Like where a cannibal would… ‘hang out’, right?”

Sketchy and Skeezy both looked at each other, at him, then around at the gas station and Roach realized that these two might be idiots from a horror movie if they didn’t see what was wrong with this place.

Animal skulls and bones were strewn about the store and it stunk like rotting meat in the hot summer’s air. Roach had pulled out his spray painting mask, one he just found days prior, and he was randomly tagging the shelves to muffle the awful smell that threatened to make him meltdown. 

Speaking of the shelves, all of them were still mostly stocked but most of them were coated in a layer of dried blood, human or zombie or what Roach didn’t know, and he was a little hesitant to grab a snack from one. 

And then there was the glaring fact that there was a mannequin at the cash register with a stuffed boar’s head on it’s shoulders.

And yet, Sketchy and Skeezy seemed completely unalarmed. How, Roach didn’t know.

“We’ll be fine, Cockroach, we’ve dealt with cannibals before,” Sketchy said, calmly throwing an arm over his shoulders, “we got this.”

Roach had dealt with cannibals before too but that didn’t mean he wanted to deal with them again. He had lost a friend to cannibals before, he wasn’t about to lose Sketchy and Skeezy any time soon just cause they both thought they could luck their way away from death’s door. 

“Whatever, let’s just, get somethin’ ta syphon and get outta here.” He grumbled, side stepping away. 

There was a wall close to the back of the store that had car stuff, maybe they could find some tubing to use and some more gas containers.

Roach crouched down when he got to the back, after looking around for stray zombies or humans, and took in what was there. 

A lot of blood dried on the floor but there was a petrole container and several feet of plastic tubing. 

It was just what they needed. 

“Hey, y’all?” He asked, looking behind him to where he thought the other two were. 

Instead he was talking into open air and his blood ran cold. 

“... Y’all?” he asked again, this time a lot quieter, as he slowly stood up, his thunderball weighing heavy in his palm as he undid the chain from around his arm. 

Somthin’ bad ‘bout to happen.

Roach peaked over the short shelves before fully rising up.

No one was there.

Had they left him? They said they were out of fuel though. Were they lying? Was this a trap? 

Were they kidnapped?!?

A scratching noise alerted him to the beer cooler on the other side of the room and he cursed under his breath. 

He crouched down a bit to hide behind the shelves as he crept over. He was sure he looked like a fool but he ain’t ‘bout to risk being seen over the shelves.

Roach pressed his ear against the cool metal of the cooler door, listening to the persistant scratching noise. He stood back up and tried to peer inside the small window with no avial.

Only one way to find out what’s in there. Maybe it’s a zombie or cannibals trying to trap him, he thought.

Steeling his nerves he grasped the handle and tugged the door open...

Or maybe a raccoon got itself stuck, he thought as a blur of fur scurried past him and out the open door.

Roach let out a loud sigh and looked into the freezer.

Empty. No cannibals or zombies but no Sketchy and/or Skeezy either…

Maybe they did leave him, but… The van was still parked outside of the gas station door and he would’ve heard them leave now that he thought about it.

Those two weren’t exactly quiet.

“COCKROACH!” A loud voice came from his left and Roach let out a very loud yelp, blindly throwing his thunderball toward the direction of the voice, nearly hitting Sketchy in the process.

“Woah, jumpy?” Sketchy asked with his hands up in surrender, eyeing the billiards ball that had been embedded in the wood beside his head.

Roach pressed the heel of his hands into his eyes, not letting go of the chain attached to the billiards ball, as he let out a shaky breath.

“T’e fuck you doin’ sneakin’ up on me?!” he asked when he finally calmed his heart down and tugged the thunderball from where it got stuck. He couldn’t deny the overwhelming surge of relief that he was feelin’ but he was also about to keel over from shock.

“Sorry, sorry. We found something pretty interesting though,” Sketchy said, throwing an arm over Roach’s shoulder to lead him to a door off of where the cash register was. 

“... What?” Roach asked, tossing his weapon between his hands. He was back to being a little on edge. “I should tell you I ain’t a fan o’ surprises.” 

Sketchy smirked. “I noticed,” he said, nodding back to where he’d almost taken the thunderball to his temple, “But this is a good surprise, I feel like you’re gonna like it.”

Roach ready hisself for the worst, whatever it could be.

Turns out the door lead to an office, Skeezy was rifling through the desk drawers and Roach almost missed what Sketchy wanted to show him.

A small pile of fireworks sat on the desk. 

The illegal kind too, the ones that you woulda needed a permit to use.

“Holy fuck,” Roach whispered, “Ain’t it kinda… stupid to have these in a gas station?”

“Yup, which is exactly why they won’t be here for long-”

“Cause we’re blowing up the place?!” Roach had already made a grab for the fireworks on the table, he had a lighter in his pocket they could use! 

“H-hey, kid, kid, kid, kid, kid!” Sketchy intercepted him, “We-we don’t, we need to… We need to get the gas first before we can do anything else.”

Oh yeah, they did need to do that, he thought and his shoulders fell. Maybe he was putting the cart before the horse but it had been awhile since he’s done anything fun like that.

“Yeah, let’s get the gas first,” he agreed, “then we can blow this place up!”

Roach was already turning to leave, he should go ahead and start so they can get to the fun part quicker.

__

“So, where’d y’all put the fireworks?” Roach asked after syphoning the last of the gas into a petrol can. There wasn’t as much gas as they’d hoped, none left in the pumps they could get out, but they had syphoned off a bunch from the cars around the property. His mouth still tasted like gasoline. He had done the one thing Monty told him not to do, accidentally swallowed a mouthful of gas and he could never regret anything more.

“They are still in the office-hey, you sure you want to do this? It’ll ruin this place for other survivors…” Skeezy trailed off.

Roach tilted his head at him in confusion, that was kinda the point? They already took all the food and supplies they could carry and this place was creepy enough, they’d be doing everyone a favor honestly. 

“Why wouldn’t we? All’a the supplies are gone and… It’s creepy.” He wasn’t really following Skeezy train of thought and he wondered if there was something wrong with his idea.

Sketchy and Skeezy shared a look, both of them frowning in a way that reminded Roach of his ma for some reason.

“I mean… I guess it’s fine…”

Roach’s face lit up and he let out a small cheer, he already had a plan. He was gonna take just a bit of gas and light up the front of the office after placing the fireworks around the inside of the station. And several outside by the pumps of course!

He was very meticulous in his placement and he took way longer than absolutely necessary to scatter the fireworks around, all of them were close enough so that they would light each other off and now he was in the office debating on which one to place last. 

The big one that had no label or the classic firecrackers?

He had kept a bunch of firecrackers for later use, so he kinda wanted to keep the mystery bundle of gunpowder and whatever else was in fireworks.

“You… you seem like you’ve done this before,” Sketchy said from the doorway.

Roach didn’t turn to look at him but he nodded. “Yeah, uh, a buncha times actually. My old group, there was this girl, my best friend, Spike, she showed me ‘ow ta time out the fuses ‘n stuff… It’s really fun.”

He was going with the firecrackers.

He put them down on the desk and shoved the other one in his bag, then pulled out his zippo.

“Is it safe?” Sketchy asked, eyeing the lighter and for the first time since Roach has known him the man looked a bit… nervous?

“No, but I know what ’m doing,” he shrugged, “yew might want to go ahead out of here before I light it up, ya know? Just incase it goes off quicker ‘an I planned.”

Roach was already playing with the lighter, not flicking the flame open just yet but playing with it, waiting for somethin’.

“Alright kid… we’ll have the van going for you.”

Roach grinned at him and waited for Sketchy to leave before flicking the flame open.

“This one fer yew, Spike.”

__

 

They booked it at top speed down the road. Roach left the back doors of the van open, watching the light-show from where he clung to one of the shelves. Fire and black smoke stretched up towards the sky, and the sparkles of the fireworks were still fizzing off. They had to be a few hundred yards away already and he could still hear the loud cracking of explosions. It was the best day of his life he could remember since before the apocalypse started.

He could see zombies staggering alongside the road heading towards the sound. Maybe they’d get themselves toasted, ha. 

The view became further and further off and Roach pulled the back doors shut, walking up towards the front. The silence was tense and Roach could feel a knot forming in his stomach. Were they mad that he’d done that even though they didn’t want to? Were they pissed he put them in danger? He couldn’t blame them if they tossed him to the side of the road after that. They didn’t want a kid around who would probably get them killed. Sketchy and Skeezy shared a look. 

And immediately burst out laughing. Sketchy turned back in his seat to look at him through the grated window, shaking his head with a wide grin on his face. 

“You really are crazy, kid, you know that?” he said.

A weight lifted off Roach’s shoulders and he smiled. “Ya bet,” he said with a nod.

“We got a real pyro on our hands, Sketch,” Skeezy snickered. 

Sketchy just shrugged. “Hey, you never know when that might come in handy.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Tommy and I know fuck-all about Graceland so take all our information with a grain of salt, please.

Roach was panting heavily by the time he reached his front door.

“MA!?!?” he screamed, tugging at the screen door. It was locked so he took the hatchet he had found and broke it open. “MA?!?”

The door gave away instantly and he frantically looked around for his ma, his heart pounding in his chest as he heard nothing except for the screams and gunfire around him for a long time. He felt like he was seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. 

“CRICKET?” his ma called from somewhere in their trailer. His real name felt weird to hear for some reason, but his ma always called him by his first name? Why was it weird?

“Ma!” he shouted, an overwhelming flood of relief washed over him quickly followed by dread.

“Ma, yer alive!”

“Cricket Walker Jones! What are yew doin’ here boy? It ain’t safe!” his ma shouted, her potter’s apron was spattered in clay and blood and Roach felt woozy looking at it.

“It ain’t safe anywhere!” he responded, words hurried and panicked even as she pulled him in for a relieved hug. “Ma, we gotta get outta here, somethin’s goin on-“

“Roach! Roach’s mom! We gotta go,” Monty urged, rushing in behind Roach and tugging his arm, “My brother got his pickup outside we-”

There was the sound of their back door breaking and suddenly his ma was shoving him and Monty towards their front door.

No.

NO.

“Yew boys go! I’ll hold them back!” his ma commanded, holding her skillet like it would help her.

“Ma no-” Roach was cut off as he was shoved through the door. He could barely look back to see his ma shutting the door and several zombies overtaking her. “MA! NO!”

He tried to make a break back to the door but Monty had his arms around his chest.

“Roach- Roach we gotta go!”

“NO! I ain’t leavin’ her!” He tried to get away, but the older boy was stronger than him and he hauled Roach to his brother’s pickup, all but throwing him into the truck bed before climbing in and pinning Roach down so he couldn’t make a break for it.

“Drive, Cliff! Now!” 

Roach barely registered his own screams and flailing limbs, he didn’t care that he definitely socked Monty in the jaw, he didn’t care that he had to be pinned down by Spike and Ryter too. No.

No, all he cared about was how his ma was dying and it was all his fault.

__

Roach woke up with start, a cold sweat beading down his face and the loudest ringin’ in his ears he’d ever heard. Oh god, oh god no.

He could feel the beginnings of a meltdown itching at the back of his mind. 

Suddenly the van was too small, too loud, too quiet, too smelly and he was ripping at his hair without thinking.

His entire body locked up with his forehead pressed against his knees and his hands in his hair. 

Oh god, why was this happening?! He hadn’t thought about that day in months and now he was dreaming about it here?!

“Hey, you okay kid?” someone said behind him and Roach was suddenly lurching forwards, away from the feeling of a hand on his shoulder.

He blindly kicked at at Skeezy, nearly hitting the man as he fell backwards. He kept his hands in his hair and shook his head as violently as he could.

His head spun and he didn’t want to be touched right then. He remembered the times he accidentally hit his friends during a bad meltdown or a panic attack and he dreaded the idea of hurting them even in his frantic state. 

It was different before. With his friends he wasn’t the only one with ‘quirks’, as his teacher’s would kindly put it, so he didn’t worry about being… weird.

Now he was scared, he had seen how cruel people could be and Roach dreaded the idea that Sketchy or Skeezy would turn out like some of the people he’d met if they found out about his ‘quirks’. 

“Hey, hey! Stop that, you'll hurt yourself!” Skeezy said, grabbing for Roach’s hands as his nails dug into the skin by his hairline. Roach slapped his hands away, but Skeezy took the opportunity to grab his wrists, pulling his hands down away from his face. 

Roach was wrapped in a hug with his arms pinned to his side so he couldn’t scratch at his face anymore, Skeezy saying something he didn’t understand. Normally, Roach loved hugs, but now the pressure felt suffocating. 

“Kid, you gotta breathe- I, follow my lead, can you do that?” Skeezy asked and Roach didn’t even notice he was holding his breath until that moment. 

Roach managed a jerky nod before gasping, he listened to Skeezy telling him to breathe in. Then breathe out. Then breathe in, then out. Over and over until he stopped skipping breaths and wasn’t in danger of passing out.

After several long minutes that stretched on like hours in Roach’s mind, Skeezy finally stopped talking and Roach went limp like a rag doll.

“You okay, Roach?” Skeezy asked, rubbing his shoulder.

Roach could only let out a weak squeak before nodding, he was exhausted and more than a little embarrassed. 

While it wasn’t his most destructive one, this was worse than any meltdown he had ever had, he wanted to crawl in a hole and die. He was gonna get left behind for this and he knew it.

He pushed away from Skeezy and curled back up on his sleeping bag. He tried to keep his breathing steady to keep from crying. He was too tired to waste his energy on crying. 

“I… alright kid, rest up okay? These things… are tiring you know?” Skeezy said, rubbing the back of his neck. 

Roach nodded and shut his eyes. 

At least Skeezy was nice enough not to kick him out right away.

__

Skeezy let Roach nap until Sketchy came back from wherever he was. Roach wasn’t sure how long Sketchy was gone for but it must’ve been long enough for Roach to fall asleep.

“Hey!-” A quick ‘shh’ interrupted the enthusiastic greeting, but Roach was already awake. He didn’t move, though, just listened. He didn’t have the energy to do anything else. 

“The kid’s sleeping,” Skeezy said in a loud whisper. “He kinda had a, y’know, panic attack? It was pretty bad,” he explained.

“Hmm, I see,” Sketchy replied, lowering his voice, and Roach could feel him hop up into the van. “How come?”

“Dunno,” Skeezy said. “Bad dream I guess, he woke up pretty freaked. ‘Fraid he was gunna hurt himself. But he’s alright now.”

But Roach didn’t feel alright. His limbs felt like lead and his eyes still felt hot and puffy from tears and his chest ached from struggling to breath. He’d kill for something for the pounding in his head too, if he’d been able to actually swallow right now, that is.

“Well, y’know, it happens to the best of us,” Sketchy said dismissively. “If there’s ever a time you’re entitled to a panic attack here and there, it’s the goddamn apocalypse, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’d say so,” Skeezy agreed.

Even through his exhaustion and embarrassment, a bit of relief stirred in Roach. They… understood? They didn’t seem annoyed, or confused, or angry. He almost wanted to cry happy, relieved tears but he was too damn tired. He did manage to muster the strength to turn over and open his eyes, though, looking at the two. 

Skeezy looked at him, then back at Sketchy and frowned. “Way to go, you woke him up,” he accused.

Sketchy’s expression turned insulted, motioning to himself in disbelief. He shook his head before turning to Roach. “Hey there, Cockroach, how you feelin’?”

Roach couldn’t muster up any words so he just gave a very slight shake of his head.

“Not too good, huh? Alright,” he said with a nod, glancing back at his partner for a second. “You need anything? Something to drink?” he offered. 

Roach considered that for a moment. His throat felt dry and raw from his meltdown, and the idea of water didn’t make his stomach turn. He answered with a small nod.

Sketchy grinned. “Good, ‘cause you’re in luck! Passed by a little old conscience store that hadn’t been touched since day one,” he said. “They had the good stuff, Poland Spring.”

Skeezy dug in a plastic bag, making a rustle that grated on Roach’s ears for a moment before pulling out a bottle of water that he tossed to Sketchy.

“Think you can sit up?” Sketchy asked, taking a seat on a box by Roach. Roach tried, moving slowly, and Sketchy hooked a hand under his arm to help sit him up. 

Sketchy uncapped the water for him, handing it Roach. He raised the bottle to his lips with shaky hands and sipped it slowly. Felt good on his throat, at least.

“Want anything else, something to eat?” Sketchy asked. “Found some jerky in the store if you’re interested.”

Roach just grimaced, shaking his head and taking another sip of water. 

He blocked out the small amount of chatter from the two as Sketchy moved to the cab and started the van. He focused on the water bottle in his hands instead, digging his thumbs into the plastic to feel it pop back against them. 

Vaguely he wondered where they were, how close they were to Graceland, and a few other things but he couldn’t really ask until he could speak again. 

Where’s my ipod? he thought, screwing the cap onto the water bottle. He looked around for his bag, spotting it a few feet from his sleeping bag.

He grabbed it and pulled it up to his chest before going through it. He had to take out several cans of paint and a few extra supplies Skeezy had given him before he found his busted up ipod. He toyed with the piece of tech for a moment before turning it on.

He had about 70% battery left so he should be good on it for a while…

Roach fished his headphones out of his pocket and plugged them in before laying back down on the sleeping bag. 

Sketchy and Skeezy would probably wake him up when they got to Graceland, maybe then he would be feeling better.

__

Graceland was… just as Roach expected it to be. Big and very fancy looking and it could probably fit four or five of his old trailer homes into it. It was surprisingly untouched for the apocalypse. 

And it was tag free!

He was feeling a lot better than he had felt before, and now he had a goal.

He was gonna tag The King’s mansion!

Roach was practically bouncing on his feet when he got out of the van with a can of paint in hand already.

“What… what’re we gunna do here?” He asked, glancing back at Sketchy, “Gunna, like… Paint?”

Words were still not working perfectly yet but he was talking again so that was good enough he hoped. At least he could communicate; he never learned more than his abc’s and numbers in sign language and he didn’t actually know if Sketchy or Skeezy knew ASL either, so that may not have work anyways.

It was just better if he could keep talking constantly.

“Of course you can kid,” Sketchy said with a laugh, throwing an arm around his shoulder.

Roach bounced excitedly on the balls of his feet, itching to get painting. He broke off from Sketchy, speeding up towards the house, leaving his two friends chuckling behind him. 

__

“Did you actually paint the king… on his throne?” Sketchy asked, laughing as they sped away from Graceland, “Why?”

“Ain’t that how he died? Like heart attack ‘r somethin’ on his ‘throne’?” Roach’s ma loved Elvis but he never paid much attention to that stuff. “Did y’all get the salt shakers?”

“Yup!” Skeezy said. He and Roach sat in the back, sorting through their merchandise as they made their great escape. He handed Roach a set of matching salt and pepper shakers and Roach laughed.

Those things looked so funny, his ma woulda loved ‘em.

The van suddenly stopped and Roach nearly fell over. Confused, he looked up at Sketchy who was staring wide eyed at the road.

“What’s th’-”

“GET OUTTA THE VAN!” came a loud shout from outside.

Roach knew what was happening immediately and he was very familiar with it too.

Carjackers.

He felt the blood run out of his face. The last time he ran into carjackers he lost Spike.

He grabbed his bag and looked at Skeezy who wasn’t making the move to leave. Instead, he was staring at Sketchy, waiting for the other man to make the decision.

“We gotta give ‘em the van.” Roach got up. He would miss the van but he had his shit with him and he wasn’t gonna die for their ride. “C’mon guys,” he urged. 

“Kid, we don’t have to give them nothin’. Here, lemme show you how to talk your way outta danger,” Sketchy tried to calm him down but Roach just looked at him like he was bonkers.

“What?! No! No, it ain’t worth it. Grab what you can and let’s go, we can find another van.” Roach was so close to begging them, he didn’t want them to die to the low lives of the apocalypse.

Sketchy laughed. “It won’t be the same, kid, do you really want to lose your artwork?”

“I’ll repaint it somewhere else!” 

“You just wait here, trust me,” Sketchy said, offering a wink back at Roach. He patted Skeezy with the back of his hand and they both exited the van, hands up in the air in a sign of peace. Their doors shut behind him, blocking out most of the sound so he couldn’t make out their words at first. He leaned through the open door into the cab, watching them nervously.

The carjackers looked very, very serious and very, very prepared. They definitely knew what they were doing, what they wanted. Roach chewed on the inside of his cheek. This wasn’t going to go well.

He could hear them from the cab. Sketchy kept his hands up peacefully. “Hey, I know these are desperate times! But maybe we can come to some kind of agreement?” he proposed silkily. “We’ve got quite a haul here, worth a lot more than our crappy van. Tell them how crappy the van is, Skeezy.”

Skeezy started to talk but he quickly had a gun on him. “Quiet! We don’t wanna hear it,” one of the carjackers shouted. “We don’t want any loot. We’re just interested in the van.”

“Or, y’know, both,” one of them chimes in from behind with a smirk. 

Sketchy put his hands down, starting to step forward. “Now, now fellas-“

“I said!” the man interrupted, “Shut it. Next one a you to speak takes a bullet, got it?”

Sketchy stepped back, putting his hands back up.

The man, he seemed to be the leader, looked up at the cab, meeting eyes with Roach. “Shit,” Roach mumbled to himself, ducking back into the back to feel around frantically for his thunderball. 

“They got someone in there! One of you get ‘em out!” the man shouted, and Roach picked up his pace, grabbing his thunderball.

“Hey, he’s a kid, leave ‘em alone!” Skeezy replied hurriedly.

A gunshot rang out and Roach’s stomach dropped out. “Ah, fuck!” he swore, heart pounding painfully against his ribs. There was suddenly a lot more indiscernible shouting outside that all blended together, more gunshots. 

And then the groans. Zombies.

Roach burst out the back of the van into utter chaos. There were Zs everywhere, nearby a carjacker was tackled to the ground, a zombie sinking it teeth into his neck. “Sketchy!” he shouted, pulling out his hatchet from the pocket of his backpack and driving it into the skull of a Z as it rushed towards him. “Skeezy!”

“Kid!” Roach whirled around, finding Sketchy grappling with a zombie, pushed back against the side of the van. There was at least six zombies between him and Sketchy, way more than he could handle on his own, and even more coming up behind him. He felt cold, stiff hands grab him from behind, a spine-chilling snarl in his ear. He struggled to turn, teeth clamping onto his shoulder and he screamed, barely able to yank himself away before the bite pierced his shirt. He drove his ax into its forehead, kicking the corpse to the ground. 

He pulled out his thunderball, swinging it so it connected with the skull of a nearby Z. But there was still more, and he saw what he could swear was Skeezy struggling on his back, a zombie pinning him down.

The van suddenly started up, taking off down the road, at least one carjacker in the cab and one pulling the doors closed in back. He couldn’t even find Sketchy in the horde anymore.

A tearing feeling in his chest, Roach fought through the zombies, booking it back the way they had come in their van, at least one Z on his tail.

Why couldn’t a good thing ever last?

__ 

Roach went to the only place he could think of going.

Graceland.

“This is all your fault,” he hissed at one of the stuffed Elvis’s they left on the shelf, “If it weren’t fer yew we wouldn’t’ve even come this way.”

Deep down he knew it was no ones fault. If it was anyone’s fault then was the carjackers, but he wanted something to direct his grief at. He wanted something he could destroy, and carjackers weren’t here, but the doll was. 

And he destroyed that stupid doll, he destroyed every goddamn thing in that stupid fucking giftshop.

Screaming and sobbing the entire time, “They’re DEAD!”

Everyone he cared about was dead. He was alone all over again.

Maybe if he left them after he finished the van they would be alive. 

He was so hurt and he wanted answers even though deep down he knew that some things just happened. That really, truly and honestly, that no one was safe from death anymore.

But that didn’t stop it from hurting him.

It didn’t stop the aching in his chest or the numbness he felt after wrecking every single piece of merchandise in that shop.

Roach just let out a broken sob and sunk to the floor, he wanted it to stop. He wanted mindless destruction to make him feel at least a little less dead.

He stared straight ahead at the broken display of Elvis themed lighters and an idea so stupid and so destructive popped into his head.

Burn it down.

Roach felt like he was on autopilot and slowly crawled over to the lighters and picked one up. Maybe it was a stupid and maybe he would regret it but…

He was going to do it.

Roach started humming softly as he gathered all the flammable items he could hold in his arms and walked up to The King’s bedroom. He was gonna start the fire in there and book it out of the house. Maybe he’d watch the building burn for a bit but he just wanted to leave.

“ _Lord Almighty, I feel my temperature risin’,_ ” Roach sung, flicking the lighter on and catching the bedsheets on fire. “ _Higher, higher, It's burnin’ through t’ my soul._ ”

He watched the bed slowly be engulfed in fire, he just watched for what was probably too long until he could feel the heat starting to seep into his skin. He tossed the lighter on the bed before turning on his heels and walking down the stairs and straight out the door.

“Well... “ Roach said, looking up at the sky, “Guess I’m gunna be alone again…” 

He should probably start walking before it got too late. If he was going to be on his own he couldn’t afford to be without shelter for to long.

He wasn’t far down the road before he could smell the smoke on the wind. He wished he could say it gave him some relief, some satisfaction or somethin’, but he just felt numb. Sighing, he tried singing sadly. 

“ _‘M so lonesome… I could… cry…_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “If anyone asks, we were nowhere NEAR Graceland.”


	5. Chapter 5

Roach was tired and numb. His entire body ached deeply.

It had been a few days since he…

Since Sketchy and Skeezy were lost. Killed. Devoured by zombies.

For some reason, even though he had only known them for a couple of weeks max, it hurt just as bad as it did to lose everyone else before them. Maybe being alone so long had made him get attached fast. 

“ _I don’t wanna be sad, sad, sad no more…_ ” Life really sucked when not even singing could keep him from almost crying. Slowly the lyrics stopped coming to him and he walked in silence.

Damn, did he feel hopeless. 

He felt like he was gonna start crying again, it was stupid. Crying was a waste of energy and he… He didn’t have energy to waste.

A zombie stumbled out of the brush by the road and Roach sighed. 

At least he had zombies to interact with.

“Come’re ya little shit,” he muttered, pulling out his hatchet, “let’s getchu good’n’dead.”

Swiftly he brought the weapon down on the Z’s skull, pulling it out as the zombie fell limp against road.

“There ya go.” He wiped the ax on his pants, zombie blood smearing on the worn denim. He just stood over the zombie for a moment before stepping over it. Before he could make it two steps away he heard the tell tale sound of footsteps rushing through the forest and Roach barely had time to glance behind him before a half dozen zombies started to spill out onto the road.

“Oh shit!” Roach shouted as more came out, quickly alerting them of his presence and like a moth to a flame they started rushing at him. 

He booked it down the road, his backpack bouncing against his bac. His lungs were burning for air in seconds. 

He ends up at a dead end, nothing but woods in front of him and a truck blocking the only other way out. 

He had no choice but to fight or die and like hell he was dyin’ without a fight. 

Roach turned around just as the first Z made it close to him. Side-stepping, he planted his ax firmly in it’s skull before ripping it out. The next ran right into the back blade on the upswing and fell to the ground. 

He wished he had a gun with him.

He had only a few seconds to panic before three more got within killing range and he drove the ax down, barely managing to hit all of them before the ax head broke off on the last one’s temple.

Roach fumbled for a moment, reaching into his pocket for his thunderball. 

His palms were so sweaty the chain almost slipped out of his grasp on the first swing. He was too tired and sloppy to do this.

This is it, he thought, wiping the sweat from his eyes as another wave of zombies came at him like in some shitty video game, This is where I die.

Roach readied himself for death, swinging his thunderball in a large circle. He was gonna die fighting and that was the only thing he was certain of.

Suddenly, like his guardian angel suddenly decided to pick up the slack, bullets rained down from behind him. Zombies started dropping like flies and all Roach could do was stare and press himself against the truck behind him as to not get caught in the crossfire.

After the lead stopped flying and the loud ringing in his ears subsided, Roach turned to find out who, or even what, saved him.

His voice got stuck in his throat when he saw none other than Sketchy and Skeezy standing on a high rock some half a dozen yards behind the truck.

“What tHE FUCK?!?” He screamed- attracting more zombies be damned- as he scrambled backwards, falling flat on his ass, nearly landing on a dead Z as he did so.

He was shaking harder than a leaf in a hurricane and he let out a, slightly hysterical, laugh.

He was dead. He got killed by a Z or maybe by whoever was trying to save him but he was dead. He had died and this was some weird limbo experience where he saw his old friends.

Roach looked around frantically, expecting to see Spike or Monty or, hell, even his ma come out of the woods and explain to him that he had died like in what happened in the movies. 

Instead he saw nothing but dead zombies scattered around and empty woods surrounding him.

“Cockroach!” Sketchy shouted, a manic grin spreading across his face as he approach him from around the truck. Skeezy was right behind him, almost tripping over a body before crouching down beside Roach.

Roach couldn’t speak.

He tried to find the words but he was in shock as Skeezy squeezed his shoulder.

Sketchy started to speak above him. “Well, we’ve been looking for you everywhere!” Sketchy said, throwing his hands up in the air before crossing them over his chest, “Where have you been, kid?”

“I-”

“We’re so glad you’re alive!” Skeezy hugged him and Roach almost shoved him off.

_They were dead._

He saw the zombies and he swore on his ma’s grave that he saw Sketchy get overtaken. Why were they alive? What the hell happened? How was any of this possible? His mind kept circling back to the ‘he was really dead and this was some weird afterlife’ theory.

Roach didn’t even realize Sketchy was talking until he snapped his fingers.

“Yeah! That’s what we’ll do! What’do’ya say, Cockroach?” Sketchy grinned down at him and Roach caught Skeezy smiling out of the corner of his eye but he didn’t know what to do.

“You two were dead…” He choked out in a small, broken whisper. He couldn’t hold back the flood gates any more and the last thing he saw before tears blurred his vision was Sketchy’s face falling.

“Kid…” Skeezy made a move to pull him into a hug and Roach violently flinched away.

“NO!” He shouted, his voice breaking from the strain, “I saw the-I saw the zombies! They were-you weren’t-“

He gasped on his words, choking up as a sob wormed its way out of his chest. He covered his face with his arms, he didn’t want to see them. They weren’t real.

They couldn’t be real.

Nothing like this had ever happened to him and he didn’t know how to handle it.

He saw his loved ones die and they stayed dead, that’s how it worked! People didn’t come back to him!

“Hey,” Sketchy said, moving to sit beside him slowly as if Roach were a startled animal, “Kid, it’ll take a lot more than zombies to kill us, we’re real.”

Roach shook his head and he heard Sketchy sigh.

“N-no…” he whispered and Sketchy and Skeezy both spent a few more minutes trying to convince him that they were really real even as he shook his head and sobbed. He couldn’t believe them, this had to be some weird limbo or maybe his mind was playing a cruel joke on him, like how it made him see his ma in every zombie he killed for months after her death or how he sometimes thought he heard his friends calling his name when he had his earbuds in his music up too high. This was those things all over again.

“Okay, you can not believe me all you want, but at least come back to camp with us? You like worse than when we first found you,” Sketchy relented after several tries and squeezed his shoulders just a bit to get Roach to finally lift his head up.

He was sure he looked pathetic, with tears and snot dripping down his face as he let out another ugly sob. He looked between Sketchy and Skeezy, who was smiling supportively before nodding.

“O-okay…”

__

 

Roach had to be half lead, half dragged to camp. He took about three steps before nearly breaking down again and he couldn’t stop shaking. 

Their camp as it turned out was a junkyard they ran into while escaping their own hoard of zombies. Sketchy went on and on about how they had saved several other survivors after getting caught in the crosshairs of a dangerous court session with someone called Zero before something about a dentist and a kid and a doctor happened and Roach stopped listening.

He immediately collapsed on an old couch and watched Sketchy keep talking as Skeezy offered him a can of what was probably either tuna or cat food, neither of which Roach particularly wanted at the moment. All he wanted was to close his eyes and pray that when, or _if_ , he opened them again Sketchy and Skeezy would still be there and he would actually be alive.

He didn’t seem to actually be able to get to sleep, though. He just lay there, awake, eyes closed, listening to the sounds around him.

“Y’know,” Sketchy started, not whispering but voice low, “I can’t really blame the kid for freakin’ out. I coulda sworn I saw him get bit back at the van.”

“Wait, you saw him get _bit_?” Skeezy responded in surprise. “And you didn’t tell me?”

There was silence for a moment, other than the sound of someone scraping the bottom of a can. “You were worried about ‘im and I just didn’t have the heart to break it to you,” he admitted, as if was the obvious thing to do.

“Ya coulda at least told me before the hanging, y’know,” Skeezy said pointedly.

The hanging? What the hell?

There was a slight clang of a can being discarded. “There was a lot going on, I was a little distracted.” He paused. “Speaking of which, how’s your neck feeling?”

“Hurts like hell,” Skeezy replied with unfitting casualness considering the context. 

Did Skeezy get _hanged_? They really were dead, huh?

“‘M sorry I got you into that,” Sketchy said, voice dropping even lower, as if he was afraid someone would hear his admission. “I shoulda listened to you.”

“... I think that’s the first time you’ve ever said that to me,” Skeezy said, a teasing quality to his voice. 

“Yeah, well, don’t get used to it,” Sketchy responded, a bit defensive. “I’d just feel bad if you died on me,” he admitted.

“Yeah, I’d be pretty disappointed myself,” Skeezy teased.

“I take it back.”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” Skeezy said with a small laugh. “You know I wouldn’t know what to do if I lost you, Sketch. We’ve been together since the beginning.”

Sketchy just hummed in reply, and Roach noticed he finally felt his exhaustion catching up to him, pulling him out of consciousness. 

__

 

Roach groaned softly, his body stiff and his neck aching from sleeping in a weird position. He blinked slowly and looked around, his mind moving at a sluggish pace as he tried to remember where he was and how he got there.

Then yesterday hit him like a freight train and he nearly fell off the couch he fell asleep on.

He looked around frantically, his head hurt at the sudden movement along with the fact he was crying for so long the night before. But he ignored it, trying to figure out if Sketchy and Skeezy were real and alive or if he was dead or hallucinating them or something.

“Well, look who finally woke up,” Sketchy said behind the couch and Roach nearly started to bawl all over again but he bit his cheek to ground himself, “Thought you were gonna sleep all day.”

Skeezy sat down on the arm of the couch and held out a mug of something that was steaming. “How’re ya feelin’?”

Roach opened and closed his mouth a few times before taking the mug in unsteady hands and just shrugging.

In the mug was what looked to be SpaghettiO’s and Roach smiled softly before his face fell again.

“Are you guys actually real?” he asked, slowly taking a bite out of the slightly out of date pasta. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if he could handle whatever answer he got.

Sketchy sighed and poked the side of Roach’s face, “We’re as real as the freckles on your cheeks, kid.” Roach pulled away, bumping into Skeezy’s side which caused them both to laugh a bit.

Roach was still tired and he didn’t really understand what was so funny but he decided he didn’t care. All he cared about was how Sketchy and Skeezy were both more than likely still alive.

“Alright, kid,” Sketchy said after a moment of just letting Roach eat, “We’re gonna head out in a little bit so eat up,” he pushed off the couch and walked over to a bunch of bags. “We have a truck this time so it’ll be a tighter fit than the van, is that fine?”

Roach nodded, finished off his food as quickly as he could, “Where are we going?”

Sketchy wandered around the camp for a bit before speaking. “We’re just traveling for now, I have an old business partner out west that owe me and Skeezy a favor so we’ll probably pay them a visit.”

Roach hummed. Everything still felt very unreal to him, his fingers tips were numb and he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was still asleep and that none of this was actually happening.

He went into autopilot and helped them pack up, the truck was small, only one bench and Skeezy insisted that Roach ride upfront with then instead of on the truck bed. 

“Yeah, Cockroach, listen, we have all this stuff to take with us,” Sketchy gestured to the bags of supplies they had apparently found at the junkyard and he then looked at the truck, “and look at the truck! You won’t fit in the back so you’ll ride with us.”

Roach wanted to refuse, part of him didn’t want to be that close to a human, it made his skin crawl but at the same time his iPod was dead and he was sure he’d cry at the sound of the wind in his ears in the state he was in.

“Alright,” he said, his shoulders dropping. 

He started to help them load up, working mostly silently. It had been a bad couple of days for him. Between nightmares and running low on supplies Roach never felt more relieved to have some sort of comfort even if he wasn’t 100% sure it was real or that it would last.

Roach ended up sitting shotgun, his knees pulled up to his chin as he picked at the fraying hole in his jeans. Skeezy sat beside him and he and Sketchy talked to fill in the background noise.

After a bit he let himself relax, just a little, let himself believe that everything happening was real. It all felt too mundane to be a dream or hallucination anyways. 

He looked over at them, really looked for the first time since they had found him. Sketchy looked normal, but Skeezy looked like shit. Weird burn marks covered a good deal of his skin, and there was a dark bruise around his neck that made Roach wince and rub at his own. 

“What happened t’ y’all?” Roach spoke up for the first time since he got in the car. 

“Well, after we got separated,” Sketchy started, glancing at Roach for a second, “we ran into some very inhospitable Albanians. Skeezy almost lost a leg.”

“Then we managed to get away on one of those little paddle boats,” Skeezy continued, “and ran into Doc’s little group again! They were on a ferry and brought us aboard. Then we hit a zombie jam and everyone went overboard.”

Roach nodded along to their story. It seemed a bit far fetched, but not as unbelievable as some of their other tales. The idea of swimming in a zombie jam though made his stomach turn.

“We wound up on the east side of the Mississippi with Doc’s kid from the shooting competition,” Sketchy said. “So we offered to help get ‘im back to his group ‘cause they’re headed west. We find a truck and wind up accidentally delivering a load of zombies to a commune of hillbillies still hung up on the Civil War.” Sketchy chuckled at that. 

Okay, now Roach was starting to have some doubts.

“Anyway, to make a long story short-“

Too late, Roach wanted to interject but didn’t. 

“We decide to spend the night-“ Sketchy started again. 

Skeezy snorted, interrupting him. “You decided,” he added. 

Sketchy glanced at him but continued on with his story. “Anyway, some dentists show up and accuse us of stealing their truck, even though it was all clearly a big misunderstanding.”

What do dentists have to do with anything?

“Yeah and then they put us on trial with this Scorpion guy as judge,” Skeezy said. “He sentences us to hang. I mean, who does that?”

“Of course, Doc’s group swoops in at the last second and saves the day,” Sketchy said, sounding unimpressed. 

Skeezy rubbed at the bruise on his neck. “They really cut it close, though!”

Roach wasn’t sure how much of the story he believed, but then again he wasn’t one hundred percent sold on the idea they were alive, so he just decided not to question it. 

So instead he just nodded. “That sounded stressful.”

“It was…” Skeezy said, “What happened while you were alone?”

Roach shrugged. He had been through a lot between burning down Graceland and running into the, then zombified, carjackers that he thought caused Sketchy and Skeezy’s death. And then, of course, finding out they were very much alive still.

“I burned down Graceland,” he said flatly and nearly busted his nose on the dashboard as Sketchy slammed on the breaks, causing him to lurch forwards. He should maybe wear a seatbelt.

“You did WHAT?!” They were both looking at him like he straight up murdered the king and didn’t just… burn down a building. “Why did you do that?!”

“I was…” he didn’t have an actual reason for why he did that, “I was… I dunno.”

Sketchy shook his head and Skeezy stared at him for a while before Sketchy started driving again. “You really have a thing for fire, huh, kid?”

Roach hesitated a moment. “I thought you were dead n’ I thought it would make me feel better,” he mumbled, picking at the same spot on his jeans. Sketchy didn’t push it anymore. 

Roach watched the trees passed by through the window, counting the dead Zs on the side of the road, wondering who killed them all.

“So kid, what happened to that iPod of yours?” Sketchy asked after a while, “This truck has an AUX cord you could use.”

“It’s dead or something, it stopped working and I lost the charger.” He winced at how blunt he sounded, he didn’t want to seem like he was brushing him off, but didn’t know how else to say it, “‘s in my bag.”

“Well, we probably have a charger, check the glove box.” 

Roach did as he was told, going through the glove box. There was a lot of paperwork that he was half tempted to read through but he shoved them to the side. In the very back was a baggy of different chargers.

And none of them fit his iPod.

“Naw… all’a them’s not it,” he said, closing the box.

“Well, we’ll find you one, don’t worry.”

Roach leaned against the window and nodded, “Alright.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and just listened to the truck.

“I wonder if the radio works… ‘While ago I heard some guy broadcastin’ ‘bout ‘ _The Murphy_ ’,” Roach said, opening his eyes after a minute.

“We tried it,” Skeezy said, “All we got was static for the most part.”

Roach sighed, he couldn’t really expect much else but still… Static might be good. He was getting kinda anxious about sitting in such close quarters and having no noise, but static might annoy Sketchy and/or Skeezy and he didn’t want to be annoying but he was so bored it hurt his teeth.

He rubbed at his bandaged arms, idly picking at them. He’d have to rewrap his arms soon, these were getting loose and a bit smelly too. 

“So, Cockroach-”

“It’s just Roach.”

“-You never have told us what you did to your arms. You okay?” Sketchy asked and Roach felt like there was an edge to his voice of something he didn’t quite understand.

Roach looked at him and then down at his arms. He didn’t really know why he wore the bandages. He wasn’t injured, sure he had scars on his arms but he wasn’t hiding them cause they weren’t bad, he just liked the pressure and he didn’t like wearing shirts with sleeves.

So he said, “I just like them.”

Maybe he sounded a bit defensive because Sketchy and Skeezy shared a look of concern.

“H-hey, alright, kid! Its cool. What about your eyes? Just like the look of those too?” Sketchy asked with a teasing tone.

“What?” Roach looked at himself in the broken side mirror, his reflection stared back with mismatched brown and green eyes. “What’d’ya mean?”

“Just sayin’, thought you were wearing contacts to look cool.” 

“Well I ain’t,” Roach said, “Got one from my ma and one from my dad.”

“You don’t talk about your dad much... “ Skeezy started to trail off.

“Didn’t know him, all I saw was pic’ures o’ ‘im, was gunna meet ‘im ‘n my brother ‘fore the apocalypse but I ne’er did that…” Roach shrugged, he never got to meet a lot of his family and the family he knew was dead for the most part. Maybe he had a few aunts ‘n uncles ‘n cousins running around drunk on shine and killin’ zombies be he hadn’t seen ‘em.

Sketchy looked like he was about to say something but he was interrupted by a clanking sound from within the engine. The truck jolted slightly and the noise got worse, the vehicle sputtering pathetically. 

Skeezy smacked the dashboard in annoyance. “Ah, Hell, I knew this thing was on its last leg,” he said and Sketchy hung his head against his arms for a second.

After taking a deep breath, Sketchy looked up. “Alright, let’s check the damage,” he said, throwing his door open and sliding out. Skeezy followed after him, popping the hood. 

Roach stayed back in the cab, singing softly to himself to distract himself from the discussion over the engine outside. He wasn’t any good with cars, other than the real basics. He didn’t really have anyone to teach him that sorta thing, before or after the outbreak.

Sketchy stepped around to his side of the truck and opened his door. “Out, kid. There’s no way we’re gettin’ this thing running. Time to head out on foot,” he informed, gesturing down the road.

Roach didn’t respond, just nodded and grabbed his bag and hopped out. He watched Sketchy hop up into the bed of the truck, digging through their haul and occasionally tossing something down to Skeezy. Looked mostly like food and water, maybe some ammo and drugs.

“Grab whatever you can carry, kid,” Sketchy said, tossing him a box of expired crackers. They began stocking up, filling their pockets and a few packs, Roach stuffing his backpack with any supplies he could find. 

And then they were moving, making their way down the road. In a way, Roach preferred moving on foot a bit. At least he wasn’t so cramped in the cab anymore. He felt like he could actually breathe walking a few steps behind Sketchy and Skeezy. 

Still, his feet hurt from nonstop walking days prior and he was quickly lagging behind more than when he first started. Once the sun was high in the sky he was struggling to keep up the slow pace he was at until he saw something glint out of the corner of his eye.

“‘Ey y’all!” His voice was scratchy and he’d have to ask for some extra water soon, “I see a house.”

Just past the treeline, tucked into the forest was a house overgrown with ivy and weeds, the tin roof caught the sun just right for him to see it.

“Well I’ll be damned Cockroach-”

“Roach.”

“-you sure did!” Sketchy said, then frowned, “When’d you get so far behind us?”

Roach shrugged. “I had to tie my shoe,” he lied. It was simple enough that they may not catch it but from the unimpressed look he got from Sketchy he could tell he didn’t get away with it, “C’mon, let’s check this place out.”

He was already making his way through the brush when Sketchy and Skeezy caught up with him, he was stomping the tall plants down so they could follow behind him. As they got closer he pulled out a small switchblade, making a mental note to try and find an ax to replace the one he lost.

The door to the house was off its hinges and Roach could see into the living room just a bit. He couldn’t hear anything but that didn’t mean the place was abandoned completely.

“Here, kid, let me go first,” Sketchy said, “I got a gun and you… we need to find you a nice gun to use.”

Roach nodded and let him go ahead, “Why don’t I go around back? While y’all check this place I’ll see if there’s anything out there?”

Maybe there was a car back there they could use.

Sketchy and Skeezy shared a look before nodding.

“Alright, kid, shout if you run into trouble, okay? Actually wait, take this,” Skeezy said, handing over his own gun.

“Yew sure?” he asked. He took the weapon from Skeezy, weighing it in his hand and checking the barrel. 

“Yea, stay safe kid.”

Roach nodded, checking that the safety was off before making his way around the house. His pants got stuck a few times on the thorny bushes but he made it to the back pretty much unscathed.

“Oh, hell yes…” he whispered when he saw a car shaped lump under a faded blue tarp.

He was sure to be as quiet as possible as he crept over. He tucked the gun into his belt and pulled the tarp off to reveal a pretty decent looking, older model car. It looked like it may run, it had all four tires and all of its windows but he didn’t know how long it had been sitting out there.

Or if it had an engine.

Only one way to find out… 

He looked around again to make sure he was alone before popping the hood. There was an engine, or most of one. It looked like it was all there but he’d have to ask Sketchy and Skeezy if they thought it would work.

“Kid! LOOK OUT!” Sketchy suddenly shouted behind him and he turned around, just in time to see someone in a ghillie suit bringing down a knife straight towards him.

He barely had time to cover his face with his arms, the knife slicing through his arm just as a shot rang out and the person fell to the ground, deader than a doornail.

Roach didn’t feel anything but his heart pounding against his chest for a long moment before white hot pain spread through his arm.

“Shit,” he hissed, grabbing the wounded arm and pulling it close to his chest, “shit, fuck, shit.”

“Goddamn- Roach!” Skeezy cursed and ran over to him. Sketchy was still holding his gun, frozen in his spot before he shook his head and ran over as well. “Shit, kid… this looks bad.”

“It feels bad,” Roach tried not to panic, it looked bad, that didn’t mean it was bad. Right?

Roach was lead inside and sat down on a dining room chair. Skeezy had taken off his jacket and wrapped it around his arm to keep it from bleeding out too much.

“We should have a suture kit somewhere, keep pressure on it okay?” Sketchy said. Skeezy nodded and Roach let out a whimper as pain shot up his arm. It wasn’t enough for him to pass out but he was definitely in enough pain to tear up. 

“Shit, I’ll never get used to gettin’ stabbed…” Roach muttered. Sketchy came back with a red first aid kit and dropped it on the table beside him.

“Okay get those bandages off him,” Sketchy started, Skeezy was following his orders, unwrapping the bandages and already starting to clean the wound.

It wasn’t too deep but it wasn’t a clean cut and it was bleeding heavily. They barely had enough supplies to fix him up but they managed to close up the wound completely.

“There ya go! All fixed up!” Sketchy said, wiping his hands on his pants, “we should have some painkillers somewhere…”

Roach shook his head. He saw what drugs they had and he didn’t really want to be high over a small knife wound. “‘Mmm good, I’ll be fine.”

“Really? We got the good stuff,” Skeezy said, grinning just a little bit.

“‘Mm sure.” He looked down at his arm and sighed, “Do we have any extra bandages though?”

“Yeah, here, I’ll do that for you.” Skeezy had a roll of ace wrap in his hands and he motioned for Roach to stick out his arm. He started at his wrists, wrapping his entire arm up to his bicep.

“Not too tight?” Skeezy asked once he secured the bandage down.

“Not too tight.” Roach looked down at his blood stained flannel and sighed. He liked that flannel a lot. He found it at a feed store and cut the sleeves off cause he liked it so much. 

And now he was gonna have to find another.

“Oh, yeah,” he remembered, words still a bit slurred from the pain and maybe a bit from blood loss. “I found a car, it has ‘n engine, I think it could work.”

Turns out it the car did work, they had to take it back to truck to syphon gas into it but it ran well enough for them to make it into a small town.

“Okay, supply run,” Sketchy said, frowning at Roach who was scratching at his stitches, “Stop that, you’ll start bleeding again.”

Roach reluctantly nodded. He got out of the car after them and was surprised to see they were outside of a small thrift shop and not… somewhere to get supplies? Didn’t they want to stock up medical supplies?

“What are we doing here?” Roach asked, “I thought we were getting supplies?”

“We are! You need some new threads, my man,” Sketchy said, checking the place through the door, “We can’t have you walking around like you just got mugged.”

“... okay?” Roach wrinkled his nose, unsure why he couldn’t look like that.

But he went along with it.

__

“What about this one?” 

Sketchy held up a fur lined coat that made Roach frown, “No?” 

“No.”

Roach sat in an open dressing room, several hats sat on his head as Sketchy kept suggesting weird clothing items. 

Too bad Roach was pretty picky about what he wore.

Skeezy had already dropped a few flannels onto his lap and Roach was in the process of cutting off all of their sleeves with his pocket knife. “”Mm fine with just a pair’a jeans ‘nd a new t-shirt ya know? Dunneed ta be luggin’ aroun’ all that shit.”

“Kid… Listen, it may be the apocalypse but that doesn’t mean you gotta go around lookin’ like trailer trash.”

“I am trailer trash,” Roach snapped before sighing. He knew Sketchy wouldn’t let up so he might as well look around and speed the process up. “Okay, fine, whatever.”

He got up and started to look through the racks of clothing, bypassing all the winter clothing and going straight for a rack of leather jackets. Okay, that he could work with, maybe he could go for a cool biker look or a punk look like Mony’s older brother had.

He pushed two large jackets aside until he found a worn brown and black vest with studs on the shoulder and a large skull patch on the back with an anarchy A on its forehead. He loved it.

It fit him pretty well, it was a little more form fitting around his waist than he was used too but damn… it looked awesome. 

Now he just needed pants to match and maybe some new boots. His army boots kinda clashed with the look.

He found a pair of well worn, skinny black cargo pants that were littered with patches and aesthetic rips, and a pair of black combat boots that were very loved and dirty as hell.

They were probably another survivors before him if he had to guess.

Roach went back into the dressing room, passing Sketchy, who frowned at his fashion choices. Skeezy seemed to find his reaction amusing, snickering, but he offered Roach a thumbs-up. 

He pulled the curtain shut and stripped off his clothing, careful to not mess up his arm too much, before changing into his new stuff. He kept on the black t-shirt he had before but fastened up the vest so all the buckles were closed and he tucked the shirt into the almost-too-skinny pants. He still had full range of his body so the outfit wasn’t too impractical it was just so… _extra_ compared to what he had been wearing for the past three years.

_But he looked good._

“What’da’y’all think?” he asked, pushing the curtain aside, “Is this too much?”

“Kid, I think you found yourself your look.” Sketchy grinned, “Now time to accessorize.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Ya know, I can drive too,” Roach said, sitting on the hood of the car as Sketchy and Skeezy argued about who would be taking the next driving shift. The sun was already setting and they needed to get on the road quick so they wouldn’t be out in the dark.

“Kid, did you even have a license?” Sketchy asked, clearly not on board with the idea of Roach driving.

“And your arm, you should rest up so that thing heals,” Skeezy pointed out.

Roach scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest, “Mont--My friend taught me how to drive, and I’ve been resting all day, my arm’s fine!”

“Look, kid, it’s not that we don’t think you can do it,” Sketchy started, “Its just- how to put this as kindly as possible-“

“We don’t wanna wind up in a ditch,” Skeezy finished, and Sketchy half-shrugged in agreement. 

Sketchy patted his good arm. “No offense, of course,” he assured. “I just don’t think it’s the best idea to have a seventeen-year-old behind the wheel in this hunk-a-junk. After all, you are a bit…”

“Crazy?” Skeezy suggested, with a slight snicker at the face Roach made. 

“I was gunna say, reckless,” Sketchy corrected, a smirk quirking on his lips. “I mean, you did blow up a gas station and burn down Graceland in the span of about a week.”

Roach frowned. “That’s different, I ain’t gunna crash, I c’n drive just fine.”

It took a bit more back-and-forth before Roach convinces them to let him drive while they got some sleep. He thinks he got them by saying:

“‘Mm worried bout y’all’s health! I sleep all’a the time. I’ll be fine fer a shift!”

Sketchy sighed, handing over the keys. “Just don’t crash us, okay?”

Roach almost cheered but instead he smirked and opened the driver’s door, grabbing his bag from the back and sitting it in his lap while the other two clammered in.

The passengers seat had gone missing after their last… run in with trouble, so two of them had been stuck in the back. 

“Just three hours, alright?” Sketchy said. 

Roach nodded, bouncing slightly in his seat with the movement.

“It’s just a trial, to see how you do.”

“I got it, I got it!” Roach assured, waving him off. 

After they were all settled in, Roach pulled his ipod out. He plugged in his headphones and clicked on the travel playlist before starting the car.

Now all he had to do was remember how Monty taught him to drive… the breaks were the left pedal right? 

Only one way to find out.

The car lurched forwards and Sketchy cursed.

“Sorry… it’s been awhile…” He also didn’t know his left from right at first, though he wasn’t going to say that. He shifted the car in drive and started at a slower speed than they were traveling earlier.

He’d rather not kill them by going too fast for comfort though, this was a lot different than how he remembered but at least he was taught with a stick shift.

Once he got the hang of it, though, he was fine. Sketchy and Skeezy stayed up until then, both offering to drive instead as Roach waved them off. Eventually they fell asleep.

Roach watched Skeezy fall asleep first, his face pressed against the window until Sketchy pulled him against his chest in his sleep, wrapping the scrawnier of the two in a bear hug. 

Both of them snored loudly and Roach couldn’t help but smile at how calm he felt. 

“ _I would like to reach out my hand_ ,” he sarted singing, watching the sky turn navy as the moon rose, “ _I may see, I may tell you to run…_ ”

__

 

Roach’s shift was supposed to only be three hours long. But he couldn’t bring himself to wake up his companions.

At some point in the night they moved, Sketchy stretched out across the seats on his back and Skeezy was laying on top of him, his head tucked under Sketchy’s chin. They just looked so relaxed that he couldn’t find it in him to ruin the moment.

So instead Roach pulled out an energy drink he found a few days ago and chugged it while putting his playlist on repeat.

“ _Life is a highway_ ,” he sung for the twentieth time that night, or morning by that point. “ _I wannaaaah drive it,_ ” he yawned before rubbing his face to keep himself awake, “ _all night looonnng._ ”

The sun had already risen and if he had to guess it was close to 7am. He was a little surprised by how heavily both Sketchy and Skeezy slept. He was a pretty light sleeper himself and they didn’t even wake up the few times he stopped for a bathroom break or to stretch his legs out or when he got really into a song and started to belt out lyrics a little too loudly. Nope, they both just snored and cuddled all night without a care in the world.

__

 

Sketchy woke up a few songs later.

“ _I’ve been there, done that, I ain’t lookin’ back_ \--Oh! Mornin’, Sketchy!” Roach said, interpreting his own solo when he saw Sketchy blinking himself awake.

“Nnng… what time is it?” Sketchy stretched as much as he could without jostling up Skeezy too much.

Roach shrugged, wrinkling his nose, “Uhh… mornin’? Sun rose a few hours ‘go…”

Sketchy jolted up, nearly knocking Skeezy over, “What?! You only had a three hour shift!”

Roach cringed at the loudness. He kinda expected that kind of reaction but he still wasn’t prepared for it.

“Well… when the first three hours passed I figured I might as well wait to wake you in another three hours so you could have a full shift… and that happened… a few times…”

Sketchy made a noise not unlike the one his ma used to make when she found out he was skipping sleep to work on art.

“Stop the car, I’m driving now.” Sketchy was already shaking Skeezy up, who surprisingly was still dead to the world.

“You don’t have-”

“Now, Roach.”

Roach sighed and pulled the car to the side of the road. He rubbed his eyes again while Skeezy woke up so that Sketchy could get out from under him.

“What’s goin’ on?” Skeezy yawned, sitting up fully.

“It’s my turn to drive,” Sketchy said and Roach’s ears burned. He felt like he had done something wrong, but he hadn’t.

If anything he did the right thing! They both needed sleep and he was used to only sleeping for a couple of hours at the most. 

So why did he feel bad?

“Sorry,” he muttered to Sketchy as they passed each other in front of the car.

“Get some sleep, kid.”

Roach climbed into the back seat, ignoring the confused look from Skeezy as he curled up against the window. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on his music rather than the bits conversation he could hear behind the quiet lyrics of another country song.

__

 

When Roach woke up they were stopped on the side of the road. He groaned once he realized he fell asleep on his injured arm and that’s what woke him up. He looked around a bit, finding the that the hood was popped and there was steam coming from the engine.

“Sleep well, kid?” Skeezy stuck his head into through the window and Roach wrinkled his nose.

“Not really, ‘fell ‘sleep on m’ arm…” Roach muttered, “‘ow long was I out?”

“Couple of hours at the most… the car overheated about ten minutes ago and we were gonna let you sleep before we started walkin’.”

Roach nodded, making a move to climb out of the car.

“He-hey, you can sleep a little longer, you’ve only been asleep for a couple hours-”

“‘Mm fine, let’s get a move on,” Roach cut him off.

__

 

Roach sprayed a red line on the highway safety guard. He was bored as hell but he didn’t really want to talk. Something told him he was in trouble for some reason and that he should maybe stay silent for a while.

Maybe he should apologize again? Or would that be awkward? 

He was never good at communicating with people.

Why did his brain always have to be convinced that everything he does wrong is going to be the thing that makes them kick him to the curb? Logically, he knew it wasn’t really likely. Sketchy and Skeezy were weird, and maybe they lied a lot, but they were pretty nice. And if they put up with him this long, they probably wanted him to stay.

It was probably that one group he tried to join, when it was just him and Spike left. She thought it would be safer if they were with other survivors. But all it took was one meltdown and they decided he was too much of a risk to have around. Spike stayed with him when they kicked him out, even though she didn’t have to.

Maybe she’d still be alive if she had just stayed with that group.

He shook off the thoughts. These depressing memories definitely weren’t helping.

Maybe he should just stop trying to figure it out and just ask. There wasn’t any harm in asking if they were mad, was there?

He jogged a few feet to catch up to his companions, bringing him a step or two behind them. He picked a bit nervously at a frayed edge of his new vest.

“Sketchy?” he started, striving to keep his voice normal. 

“Hey!” he started, glancing back over his shoulder, “He speaks!” he exclaimed dramatically, smirking. It got a giggle from Skeezy.

At least they were joking around and laughing. He was pretty sure that was a good sign at least. 

“Can I ask ya somethin’?” Roach asked, twisting a loose t-shirt thread around his finger. 

“Depends on what you’re askin’,” Sketchy said with a shrug.

Roach wasn’t sure what that meant, so he just decided to go for it. “Are ya’ll mad at me?”

The question seem to take both Sketchy and Skeezy by surprise. “Mad about what?” Skeezy asked in confusion.

“Not wakin’ you up fer yer drivin’ shifts,” Roach said, kicking at a pebble on the road and watching it skip to the side across the pavement.

They shared one of their looks and Sketchy shook his head, laughing. They fell back a step to walk beside Roach, and Sketchy patted his shoulder. “Nah, Cockroach, we’re not mad. I was just worried you’d pass out at the wheel from lack of sleep.” He glanced up at Skeezy with a grin. “As a matter of fact, Skeezy and I appreciate the extra sleep! Haven’t felt this awake in days!”

“Oh… good…” Roach looked away so they wouldn’t see the dopey grin on his face. That made him feel a lot better, “Thanks.”

Sketchy raised an eyebrow, “For what?”

“Fer not bein’ mad at me.”

They walked in silence for a while longer, Roach still painting the guardrail, and searched for a vehicle they could use. Or at least a place they could sit down, his legs were starting to hurt.

And he was really starting to lag behind again.

Damn those two walked fast.

He had to jog to catch up to them again.

“Do y’all know where we’re at?” he asked, “Or how far we ‘re from that ol’ business partn’r ‘r whoever it was?”

“Uh, we are somewhere past the Mississippi and quite a ways away from our destination,” Sketchy said and Roach sighed.

“Great.”

It was late evening when they finally stopped walking.

“Kid, you look like your about to fall over!” Skeezy exclaimed and Roach waved him off.

“No,” he sighed, “that’s just my face.” 

But he still sat down the moment he could, leaning against the guardrail. He cleared his throat and looked through his backpack to see if he had any food or water. He still felt weird about asking for things from Sketchy and Skeezy, even if they always insisted he take more than what was a fair share in his opinion.

Luckily he had a water bottle with a little bit left in itl and he sipped on it slowly as Sketchy looked over the rail beside him. 

“Kid, you wouldn’t happen to have any binoculars in that bag of yours, would you?” Sketchy asked after a moment of squinting at the horizon.

“Uh... “ Roach peaked into his bag and shook his head, “No, why? Yew see som’in’?”

“Maybe… It’s a little far away but I think I see a barn,” Sketchy said. 

“Well, that’s good-“ Skeezy chimed in, his voice rising in pitch, “cause I see a big hoard of zombies heading this way!”

“Oh shit!”

__

 

They barely, barely, made it to the barn and cleared it out in time for the hoard to catch up with them.

For the dead who should have had rigor mortis set in they were fast fuckers.

Roach climbed up the only ladder up to the hayloft just in time for the zombies to start filing through the open building. He looked around to make sure the other two were safe, only to find them making themselves comfortable on some of the old blankets left up there.

He rolled his eyes and looked back over the edge to see the near solid mass of Zs trying to pass by. At least they didn’t hear them or hadn’t knocked down the barn yet.

“Wonder where they’re all headin’ to,” he commented, sitting down beside them but not on the pile of blankets. He could tell just from looking at them that the blankets were all the wrong texture for him. He was already pulling out his painting mask to hopefully block out some of the typical zombie stench.

“I heard they migrate west to feed,” Sketchy said.

“Like… birds?” Roach wrinkled his nose. That made sense but… zombies were kinda dumb in his experience? What would make them start to migrate? Were zombies all a hive mind that once in large packs started to move as one? Maybe ‘The Murphy’ was in California and they were trying to get closer to him? Didn’t he supposedly have the power to mind control them?

“Yup, my theory is they are sweeping the country from top to bottom cause humans are starting to run low.” Sketchy laid back further, covering his eyes.

Roach nodded along. It sounded untrue but it was more believable than some of the other stuff Sketchy had told him.

He wrapped his arms around his legs and tucked his knees under his chin as Sketchy and Skeezy started talking about zombie theories and how to use them to their advantage. A small smile tugged on his lips; one of them should be called ‘Scammy’.

Or maybe that should be his new nickname.

Sketchy, Skeezy, and Scammy.

Heh. That sounded pretty funny.

“-What do you think, Cockroach?” Sketchy asked and Roach opened his eyes.

“Hmm? What?”

“Nevermind, it’s not important.”


	7. Chapter 7

Roach scowled in his half-asleep state. He tried to remember when he fell asleep but the day before was a blur of running from zombies and losing a game of go fish over and over against Sketchy as they sat in a hay loft to wait out the hoard.

Then he fell asleep and now he couldn’t move at all.

He cracked his eyes open to see the familiar sight of Sketchy’s jacket right in his face and felt an arm tighten slightly around him. Roach let his eyes fall back shut.

This was a really weird dream.

Sketchy’s chest moved under him and it took Roach a minute to figure out that he was talking.

“Since they’re gone I say we head in the direction they’re headin’,” Sketchy said.

“Won’t that just cause us problems if they turn back around?” Skeezy asked and Roach heard the sound of bags being moved.

This ain’t a dream is it? Roach thought, wrinkling his nose up, I’m really being used as a teddy bear, ain’t I?

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” Sketchy patted Roach’s back, “and we’ll figure everything out after Cockroach wakes up.”

That was his cue he supposed. 

Roach rolled over, scrubbing a hand over his face when he realized he wasn’t wearing his mask anymore. And that the smell of zombies was fully gone.

“‘Ow long was I sleepin’?” Roach asked, yawning loudly, “‘Orry I fell’a’sleep on yew.”

“You’re fine,” Sketchy waved him off. “You slept all night, seemed comfortable so didn’t want to wake you.”

Roach just shrugged, hiding just a bit of embarrassment. He and his friends had often slept in a big pile- not always, but enough that he’d gotten used to having other people around when he slept. But after he lost Spike months ago, he had barely had any human contact whatsoever, to the point where he both craved it and flinched away from small touches without even thinking.

It was kinda weird waking up that way, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel way better this morning after being used as Sketchy’s teddy bear than he usually felt most mornings. 

Another perk of being in a group he guessed.

He moved away, finding his mask tossed off to the side near his backpack. He must’ve pulled it off in his sleep. He slipped it back over his neck, pulling his bag over and going through its connents again. He was starting to run low again on a few of his paints, and he thought wistfully back to the memory of the art supply place they had found them. If only they could go back there.

Roach looked up as Skeezy squatted down in front of him, holding out a beat-up looking bottle of water and offering him a wide grin. “Thanks,” Roach said, returning the smile and stuffing the bottle into his bag before zipping it up and slinging it over his shoulder. They both stood and Skeezy nudged his arm slightly.

“So, kid,” he started, tone teasing, “you never told us what you decided.”

Roach looked at him somewhat blankly. “Huh?”

“Are we real?”

“Oh,” Roach said, feeling a slight lump in his throat at the memory. “Y-yeah, yer real,” he said, forcing a small laugh. “That was- I was just freaked ‘cause I thought I saw the botha ya’ll get killed.”

“Well, no one can really blame you for that,” Skeezy shrugged before motioning over towards where Sketchy was stooped over their worn-out map, lowering his voice, “Sketchy told me he was shocked to see you himself, thought he saw you get bit.” He smirked, playfully punching Roach in his good arm. “But it takes more than a couple zombs to do us in, right, kid?”

A smile tugged at Roach’s lips. “Right,” he agreed. “It’ll probably be ‘n angry mod that does ya in,” he teased.

Skeezy laughed. “You’re probably right about that! If you had half a mind, you’d ditch us while you still have a chance,” he snickered.

“Now, don’t you go giving the kid ideas, Skeezy,” Sketchy warned, looking up from his map for a moment. “We don’t want him gettin’ smart and takin’ off on us.”

A big smile stretched across Roach’s face. “Ya don’ gotta worry, I ain’t goin’ anywhere,” he promised. “Y’all are like my weird uncles ‘r somethin’.”

Sketchy looked up again, with a small grin at seemed to be genuine for a second. “Good to know, Cockroach,” he said, and his expression was back to his usual mischievous smirk. 

Roach blew out an annoyed puff of air at that. “Y’know what, n’vrmind, ‘m leavin’,” he said, shaking his head. 

__

Roach clicked the headphone volume controls between his lips. It was broken so it didn’t have an impact on the songs but it felt good to do.

He had a can of burgundy paint and was doodling a little cartoon zombie man on the side of the road on a dead end sign.

“ _Mama we all go’ta hell, mama we all go’ta hell, I’m writing this letter and wishing you well. Mama we all go’ta hell,_ ” Roach sang, doing swooping letters as he wrote a smart little quip under the little zombie.

Roach dropped the can into his bag once he was done. 

He looked over his shoulder to see Sketchy and Skeezy still arguing with the same man they had been for the past hour. And Roach was gettin’ bored.

They had stopped by a farmstead not too far from the barn they stayed in to raid the small house. Well, it turned out the house was occupied and Sketchy decided it would be a good time to con his way into acquiring them some transportation and maybe even some supplies.

So far, no dice.

Roach sighed as quietly as he could. They should just leave, walking wasn’t too bad and he… really didn’t want to make any strange survivors mad by being too persistent. 

“What about some antibiotics for our boy?” Sketchy tried, “He got a real nasty gash and we’re worried about an infection.”

Roach nearly choked on his own breath at the words ‘our boy’. It was only to tip the con in their favor with an emotional aspect but goddamnit did it catch him off guard.

The man they were arguing/bartering with looked over to him and Roach did his best ‘I’m a perfectly average human’ impression and tried to smile back. It was particularly hard today, with Sketchy’s words still echoing in his ears. 

“Where’d the kid get hurt? Both arms?” The man looked him over, frowning deeply at the bandages on his arms. Roach ran his hand over the cloth strips self-consciously. 

“Yes! We ran into some human traffickers along the Mississippi, tried to turn the kid Z. But he fought back, a real brave soul,” Sketchy lied, putting a hand over his heart, “Barely managed to keep his arms. We had enough supplies for a few days but he’s only just now broken a fever.”

Don’t people with fevers usually look it? Roach thought before the stranger started talking again.

“Yeah, poor kid looks pretty awful…”

Well, that helped his self esteem. Real confidence booster.

“Okay, alright, I’ll help yuns. Just make sure he gets taken care of,” the man agreed, turning to walk towards the house, “Com’on.”

 

—

 

The pity-angle had worked, Roach had to admit. The guy had given them a decent amount of supplies. Not a ton, but enough to get them by for two or three days. Sketchy knelt beside the bags, rummaging through them as he started speaking. “So, here’s the plan-“

“What ‘bout that friend a yer’s out west?” Roach interrupted, returning his spray cans to his pack.

“We’ll get there, Cockroach,” Sketchy assured dismissively, waving him off.

Roach squinted at him. “Are ya ever gunna just call me ‘Roach’?” He just got a smirk in reply so he shook his head. “And why can’t yew ever just stick t’ one plan, Sketch?”

For a second Sketchy looked like he was coming up with his usual clever retort before he looked up at Roach. “The joys of ADD, my friend,” he said with a grin, tapping at his temple. “I gotta go where my focus takes me or I’m getting nothing done, because there ain’t no deadlines in the apocalypse.” He stood, dusting off his hands on his jacket. “No Adderall neither.”

“All’a that stuff got used up pretty fast,” Skeezy agreed from where he was still busy packing up.

Roach nodded. He knew about that all to well. “Yeah, I’ve been off my meds fer like two years.”

“Doc used to keep an eye out,” Sketchy reminisced, “He’d always slip us our prescriptions if he found ‘em.”

Roach wished he could meet that Doc guy, he seemed real nice.

It would also be nice if he could somehow get him back on his meds but he didn’t really want to deal with withdrawal from them again. 

Those were awful.

“So this Doc guy is headin’ out west? He lookin’ for that ‘The Murphy’ myth man?” Roach asked, “‘r was he out there already?”

“He’s headin’ out that way, his group was the last time we saw them,” Sketchy pulled out a pill bottle, shaking out two blue pills. “Here, take these.”

Roach frowned, not moving to grab the pills from his outstretched hand. “What’re they?”

He was a little untrusting of being fed meds after being given the wrong ones one too many times.

“Stuff to keep away an infection. We can’t shower and you can’t go around dyin’ from a knife wound on us,” Sketchy explained, shaking the pill bottle, “Take ‘em.”

Roach still hesitated, but he took the pills from Sketchy, turning them over in his hand. They looked harmless but he was not happy at the idea of them.

Still, he threw them back and swallowed dry.

“Euck,” Roach made a face, “I forgot how bad these taste.”

“Well, if you woulda asked I woulda given you some water!” Sketchy laughed at his face.

Roach was almost mature enough to not blow raspberry at him.

Almost.

__

 

Roach was told he had to take two pills, twice a day to make sure he the gash didn’t get worse. Turns out the lack of clean bandages and the general unsanitariness of the apocalypse made it so infection was almost inevitable. But thankfully they found a small clinic, a vet clinic but a clinic all the same, and they were able to resew his arm up after a bad run in with some zombies caused him to bust the stitches. 

After a week of using up too many bandages and him not using his arm much the wound was finally healed enough for him to use again.

So that was good.

“Hey, what’s up wit’ these signs e’erywhere?” Roach asked, pulling out a can of gold paint to mark one up. “They look new?”

The signs all said the same thing ‘Couples Apocalypse Honeymoon Retreat’, with hearts surrounding the red and pink text.

Of course Roach sprayed a dick on at least one of them, and the others got little roaches all around.

Sketchy looked at the signs, then at Skeezy. “Well, I think we found our new destination!”

“Wait! Whadda ‘bout that friend ‘f yers out west?” Roach almost groaned, he didn’t do too well with changes in plans. He prefered to just stick to one thing and do it. Even if he understood why Sketchy did it, it was still difficult for him.

“Don’t worry, Cockroach-”

“Roach.”

“-We’ll get there! This is just a detour.” Sketchy clapped him on the shoulder, “We can just see what this is about and hey! Maybe you can help us con whoever’s there.”

Roach frowned, but he nodded. Hopefully they weren’t gonna get killed.

__

 

The retreat was big and, just like Graceland, it was uncomfortably clean looking. Unlike Graceland, though, it looked less like it hasn’t been touched since the apocalypse and more like someone had went to great lengths to fix it up recently. There were neatly trimmed heart shaped hedges lining the walkway in and a golden, heart shaped arch way just before a circular entrance way. Lots of people, couples Roach noted, were milling around, all of them dressed way too nicely for survivors in his opinion.

“So,” Roach whispered, “why’re we in trees ‘stead ‘f checkin’ this place out?”

The three of them all climbed into a tree, just far enough away so that they couldn’t be seen easily but they had a clear view of the building and its occupants.

“We are checking the place out… just at a distance…” Sketchy was looking through a pair of binoculars they found a while back. He said that it was important to have after that hoard of zombies passed through and Roach couldn’t really argue with that.

“We’re in a tree,” Roach said flatly, re-adjusting hisself on the branch he was sitting on. While it was funny to see Sketchy and Skeezy climb up the tree he would rather not be in one.

He and trees had had a very complicated relationship over the years.

He’d climb them and then he would fall out of them.

Every goddamn time. 

And to be completely honest, he would rather not break his arm so soon after his last injury healed.

“Yes, yes we are,” Sketchy said, “And now we need to get out of the tree. I have a plan.”

Roach watched them both climb out of the tree before successfully climbing down himself.

This better be worth it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long awaited, finally here!

“Okay, so here’s the plan. We’re married.” Sketchy threw his arm over Skeezy’s shoulder.

“Congrats,” Roach said, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“W-wha-No! That’s the plan!” Sketchy almost shouted, sounding mildly exasperated, the slight red on his face telling Roach he was a little embarrassed.

Skeezy wasn’t looking at either of them and he had a matching blush across his cheeks.

Roach crossed his arms, waiting for them to recompose and tell him what they were doing. And to tell him why they had to find a jewelry store.

“The resort is a couples only, honeymoon getaway,” Sketchy explained, “So Vernon and I will be newlyweds!”

With that, Sketchy turned around and pushed the doors to the small jewelry store open.

“How’d you figure that from bein’ in a tree?” Roach asked, pushing in after him. 

“I didn’t, it was on one of those signs you tagged without reading. We were in the tree to get an idea how to get inside.”

__

Roach was having flashbacks to back to school shopping with his ma and his cousins.

He was wishing he was anywhere but listening to Sketchy and Skeezy talk about wedding rings.

“But these look better!” Skeezy insisted, holding a pair of silver rings- though he claimed them to be platinum, not that Roach knew the difference- inlaid with tiny little diamonds all the way around the edges. It was very sparkly and shiny, a bit too much so in Roach’s opinion. 

Sketchy shook his head, holding up a pair of two-tone rings, mostly gold with silver through the middle and large gems set into the silver. “Listen to me, Vernon, I have an eye for this sort of thing. These are definitely the ones,” he assured, resting a hand on Skeezy’s shoulder. Skeezy just frowned and Sketchy turned to Roach. “Cockroach, what do you think?”

“Again, just Roach, and Skeezy’s look better but they are both ugly,” Roach said, tossing a pair of earings between his hands. It had been a long time since he’d worn earrings. He’d convinced his ma to let him get his ear pierced when he was twelve, but he’d lost the pair he had been wearing sometime before Black Summer. Never really thought of getting a new pair. “Why don’t y’all just use plain bands?” he suggested, staring into a mirror as he pushed the studs into his ears. 

Both of the men gave him a look that told him he said the wrong thing.

“It’s the little details that matter, kid,” Sketchy said pointedly. 

“Okay, fine, why not one of each ring? Do they have to match?” Roach’s ma was never married, he didn’t know many married couples growing up and he never really paid attention to something as small as what their wedding rings looked like.

Sketchy sighed, rubbing his face, “They have to match.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause it’s for… you know, unity and shit,” Skeezy said with a shrug.

Sketchy shook his head at his partner. He got that look on his face, like he about to try and sell someone something, like he was about to tell some bullshit story.

Roach was very familiar with that look by now.

“Roach, Roach, Roach,” he started, walking towards him and hooking an arm around his shoulders, giving the boy a little shake. “The wedding bands are a promise between two parties to love and cherish each other for all time,” he explained dramatically, and Roach rolled his eyes. “The matching bands symbolize that you are a matching set, you can’t get one, without the other.” As he spoke, he brought a finger from each hand together emphasize his point.

“So like you and Skeezy?” Roach asked. 

Sketchy cleared his throat and dropped his arm from Roach’s shoulder. “Sure,” he replied, voice tight, and Roach had to fight back a smirk.

He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t done that on purpose. 

They were both silent for a moment, Sketchy making a point of looking into one of the glass cases. Skeezy finally walked up beside him. He held out his hand, the two rings in his palm. “I want mine.”

“And I want mine.”

Roach sighed, stepping away to look around rather than hearing them go back and forth about those rings.

“Ya know, you two already bicker like an old married couple,” he said, looking through one of the jewelry cases holding leather-made accessories. Sketchy made a noise not unlike one a choking goose might make and Skeezy went silent. “Oh, these look cool…” he mumbled to himself. 

He fumbled with his ax for a moment before adjusting it in his hand. He brought it over head and down on the small lock keeping the case shut. 

Inside were all choker collars. He pulled one out and turned to the other two, “Think this matches what I’m wearin’?”

“Its great,” Skeezy said, “Now help us decide on the rings.”

Roach rolled his eyes, buckling the choker around his neck before heading over to look at rings.

“What about those?”

“Those are brass knuckles someone left behind, Roach.”

__

 

They made a choice on the rings after fifteen more minutes of bickering and Roach almost threatening to burn the place down. It ended up being on Skeezy’s third choice and Sketchy’s seventh.

“So, when we get there am I just gonna hide in the bushes ‘r somethin’?” Roach asked, keeping his eyes on the sky rather than on the other two as they walked ahead of him.

“What? Why would you hide?” Skeezy looked back at him, stopping in his tracks.  
Roach just shrugged.

“Well,” he started, looking right above Skeezy’s head, “it’s a couples getaway ain’t it? It’d seem awfully strange fer y’all to bring me along on yer honeymoon.”

“Yeah, but-”

“We got a plan, kid. Don’t worry.” Sketchy flashed him a smile and Roach sighed slightly. They always had a plan, he just hoped this one was a good one. 

 

—-

Of course, rings weren’t the end of it. Roach wasn’t that lucky. 

After arguing over wedding bands for at least an hour- it was a CON, why did it matter so much?- their next step was dragging Roach to a dusty men’s clothing store, one of those places that mostly sell suits and ties and stuff. His ma had brought him to one once, right before the outbreak after they got invited to a cousin’s wedding. He had hated it then, and he hated it now. 

Sketchy and Skeezy seemed to be having a good time, though. Sketchy definitely liked to get dressed up. 

It helped that the place was practically untouched. Made sense; who in their right mind wanted to wear a tux in the middle of the apocalypse?

Not Roach. 

He sat off to the side on a pile of discarded clothes, flicking the volume button on his headphones. His iPod was dead again, and while he had a charger, they hadn’t found anywhere with the power to charge it in days. Skeezy was examining himself in a dirty mirror, wearing a jacket that hung off his skinny frame a bit too much, and Sketchy flicked through a rack of blazers. 

“Hey, Cockroach, try this on,” Sketchy said, tossing a black jacket his way that Roach barely managed to catch.

“Ya mean ‘Roach’,” he replied and narrowed his eyes at the jacket. “And I ain’t wearin’ any’a this shit,” he added, pushing it off his lap and onto the floor.

Sketchy’s brow furrowed slightly at that. “Just try it on, Roach, you can’t go in dressed like that.” 

Roach frowned, wrinkling his nose. “Why not? I hate this stuff,” he asked, nudging the material at his feet with his foot.

“Did you see how everyone in that place was dressed?” Sketchy asked, adjusting his tie and collar of his shirt. “We have to fit in. Looking like you belong is half the battle.” He grabbed a dress shirt, packaged in a plastic wrapper, and he examined it for a second before tossing it to Roach. “Put it on.”

“I don’t see why I gotta go in with y’all anyway,” Roach huffed, opening the plastic and pulling the still-crisp shirt out of the bag. He unfolded it, scowling at the sleeves. “Why can't I jus’ hideout til yer done?”

“No offense, kid,” Sketchy started, “But the last time we let you outta our sight, you got yourself stabbed in the arm.”

Skeezy turned back towards them, an undone bow tie hanging around his neck. “Yeah, it’s kinda best if we stick together.”

Sketchy nodded, a smirk crossing his face. “Yeah, I mean, Skeezy and I can’t always be trusted to pop up at the last minute to save your ass from danger,” he teased, nudging his partner in the side with an elbow and getting a snicker. “And you, Roach, have a tendency to get yourself into danger when left unsupervised.”

Roach looked back down at the shirt again, feeling a bit of heat creeping up his neck. “Whatever,” he mumbled, feeling the vaguely scratchy material between his fingers. “But I still won’t wear any’a this,” he said. 

Sketchy sighed, leaning against a rack and shaking his head dramatically. “Is there anything here you will wear?”

Roach stood, making a slow loop around the store and skimming over the clothes. He kept his companions in the corner of his vision, watching as Sketchy motioned Skeezy over and tied the bow tie around his neck.

When he made his way back over empty handed, Sketchy was looking closely in the mirror, carefully combing his hair back.

“I don’t wanna wear any’a this stuff,” Roach said, crossing his arms over his chest.

Sketchy pocketed his comb, shaking his head and pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment. “Is there any way at all we can get you to wear a suit, Roach?” he asked. “You’d be doing us a huge favor.”

Roach frowned, thinking, before stooping down to pick up the jacket he had pushed on the floor earlier. He examined it for a second before pulling out his switchblade and quickly cutting one of the arms off with practiced precision. He met Sketchy’s eyes for a second. “No sleeves.”

Sketchy shared a quick look with Skeezy before shrugging. “You know what, good enough,” he relented, before pointing at Roach, “But you’re wearing a tie.”

Roach rolled his head back and groaned, stalking off to at least find clothes with the least offensive material.

The stuff he did for these two’s crazy plans. 

—

Turns out they did in fact have a plan to get him in.

Once they had scavenged up some supplies that would make a decent trade to get inside, mostly bullets and medical gear, Sketchy lead them straight to the front lobby of the resort like he knew exactly what to do.

“Hello, we’d like a room, honeymoon suite!” Well, he certainly didn’t waste any time.

The ‘receptionist’ looked the three of them up and down. While he was dressed unusually nice for the apocalypse, the man had all the tells of any average hardened survivor: calloused hands tapping lighting on the desk in front of him, a small scar under one eye, greying hair that looked out of place on his rather young face- probably from stress.

Roach had only stayed in hotels a few times as a kid, but he definitely remembered the receptionists there being a lot nicer than this guy. Though, his behavior was almost a little comforting. Roach had found nothing more suspicious in the apocalypse then people who were overly inviting.

Sketchy and Skeezy, he guessed, were the exception. But, then again, their demeanor usually wound up with them ripping someone off. So maybe it was Roach who was their exception. 

The man looked Roach over, and he chewed the inside of his cheek, choosing to inspect a ceramic mug on the reception desk instead of meeting his eyes. 

“The kid with you?” the man asked, doing little to hide the suspicion in his voice. 

“Yes, he’s our nephew. We took him in after his ma died,” Sketchy explained.

‘Nephew’? Roach dropped the cup he was looking over. Thankfully, it didn’t break but the man at the front desk gave him a look that made him want to leave this place.

“See, he’s a little…” Sketchy paused and for a moment and Roach was worried about what he would call him, “Traumatized from her death, real violent and he was there for all of it.”

A moment passed before the receptionist spoke again. “It’s rather unorthodox to bring a kid along on your ‘honeymoon’,” he said.

“Of course, of course,” Sketchy agreed in the tone Roach was growing familiar with, the tone that he used when he was telling you exactly what you wanted to hear. “But these are unorthodox times! We’re a family, and it’s not safe for a young man like our boy to be by himself, not in the middle of the apocalypse,” he said, the dramatic edge to his voice reminding Roach of a preacher he once saw on TV.

The receptionist watched Sketchy for a moment before uttering a disinterested, “Mhm.” He didn’t quite seem convinced, which sent a twinge of worry down Roach’s spine.

Sketchy threw an arm over Skeezy’s shoulder. “You see, good sir, the three of us love each other very much, and we just want to ensure each other’s safety in these difficult times,” he implored, resting a hand over his heart. He turned to look at his partner. “Isn’t that right, Vernon?”

Roach wasn’t exactly good a reading people, but even he knew that you’d have to be a complete idiot to not see the adoration in Skeezy’s eyes as he nodded in agreement. Sketchy turned his attention back to the receptionist, but Skeezy’s gaze stayed on him. 

The receptionist caved then and told them the cost of their stay, which Sketchy smoothed talked into them only giving up half of their supplies they found.

__

“Swanky room ain’t it?” Skeezy said, flopping down on the heart shaped bed. Roach watched him in amusement.

He was right, though. Other than Graceland and maybe the White House, this was the nicest place he had ever been too. 

It also put him on edge.

Nowhere else had so many… well dressed survivors. So much stuff, in return for, well, not much trade in Roach’s opinion. It didn’t really line up. 

So much food, too, he thought, glancing at the complementary fruit bowl and bottles of wine. Speaking of which…

Roach grabbed a bottle, rolling it over in his hands. 

“Ain’t you a little young to drink?” Skeezy joked but his face didn’t match his tone. Roach shrugged, he had no intention on drinking it anyways.

“Well, if I’m gonna be roomin’ wit’ my uncles on their honeymoon…” He shook the bottle and chuckled at Skeezy’s red face, “Naw, I’m just kiddin’ ya. I don’t drink none neither. Just wanted to see how old it was.”

“Oh… how old is it?”

Roach looked for the date, squinting at the weird text.

“Old.” He couldn’t read the text at all, it was too loopy and he couldn’t tell if that was a six or a five.

He was just about to open his mouth again when Sketchy bursted into their room. 

“Get out,” he said simply, pointing at Roach and he panicked.

“What? Why?! What did I do?!” he asked, trying and failing to keep the edge of panic out of his voice.

“Nothing! But you gotta go. It’s our honeymoon, kid and it would be suspicious if you stayed in the room with us the entire time,” Sketchy said, putting an arm around Roach’s shoulder to guide him towards the door, “So, you gotta go for… a few hours? We’ll find you at dinner!”

With that, Roach was shoved outside to process what just happened. 

Oh god, they were fucking, weren’t they? That’s what was happening, he thought, making a disgusted face before pounding on the door.

“Hey! If ya’ll just wanted to hook up, ya coulda just said so!” he shouted before turning tail and running down the hallway.

He could fuck off for a few hours, he was sure he could find _something_ to do.

__

He had been wandering around the resort for well over two hours but he wasn’t quite ready to return to their room… just incase.. Ya know… 

That would be awkward as hell. And besides, he prefered to be trespassing and looking for their supply room to raid. They’d probably be pretty impressed if he came back to the room with a really good haul.

He snickered slightly to himself. Sketchy and Skeezy were turning him into a pretty good thief, weren’t they?

He came down to the end of a hallway with a door that seemed very promising. 

“Staff only my ass,” he whispered to the yellow sign on a door somewhere in the back of the building, testing the door to see they left it unlocked like dumbasses.

He pushed the door open, ax in hand and thunderball in its little pouch just in case, his backpack slung over his shoulder to carry back anything interesting he found. Inside was a break room. Against one wall there was a couch with a coffee table in front of it. A refrigerator sat in the opposite corner at the end of a counter. And the wall completely opposite to him had a door that lead to who knows where. The entire room was lit by candles and he wasn’t quite sure it it was because they only had one generator, the only one he could find at least, or if it was to give the place a romantic atmosphere.

He didn’t really care either way, truth be told.

Roach shut the door behind him. 

Time for some exploring, he thought. That door seemed much more interesting than the fridge.

He walked as softly as he could to the other side of the room.

That door _was_ locked.

Roach wrinkled his nose, wondering what he should do before settling on just breaking the doors handle.

A quick hit with the butt of his ax that would make Spike proud and he was in.

The door opened to a dark staircase and Roach suddenly felt uneasy. His mind flashed back to the horror movies and games MayBell would force them to sit through pre-apocalypse and he almost wanted to turn back. If he was smart he would.

But his ma didn’t raise no quitter and he was a whole ‘nother breed of stubborn.

Roach fumbled for the keychain he found and turned on the mini flashlight, making his descent into what would probably be his death.

At least this is interesting, he thought, I thought I would die of boredom in this place.

The room at the bottom of the stairs was pitch black and…

Completely uninteresting.

“Eeughhk…” Roach scoffed. Maybe he would die of boredom after all.

He shined the flashlight all around. The weak light barely illuminated the room, enough to make out a desk and some boxes that weren’t eye catching. But then…

_Then_ he saw something very, very interesting.

“Why, hello, what do we have here?” He pushed the desk away from the wall, grinning at the almost hidden door behind it.

Damn, this place had a lot of doors!

It took a lot of elbow grease and some well placed strikes with his ax but he got the door unstuck and what he saw was… not expected.

A stone lined hallway that lead further underground on a small incline laid before him and his survival instincts told him to turn back.

But what could he say? He was bored and he had gotten this far already.

__ 

Roach felt like he had been walking forever. Maybe this secret tunnel had just been like… a super old part of the building? He learned in school once some older buildings had tunnels, for what purposes he didn’t remember but he learned that much.

He sighed. This was just one lackluster, almost-adventure after another. If he had his old group here they would have found something to keep themselves entertained but Roach was feeling too bored to think or focus on anything but his own boredom.

He was just about to turn back when he heard something.

It didn’t sound like zombies, it sounded… Human?

Roach furrowed his eyebrows and pressed forwards, his ax tight in his hand.

The situation felt very wrong but also very exciting and Roach was oh-so-very impulsive.

He followed the soft noises, whimpering he figured, to their source. It wasn’t too much further down the hall.

A prison door?

Roach furrowed his eyebrows and shown the light on the steel door and slowly crept over to it.

As soon as he put his hand on the door, it creaked open and immediately Roach was hit with the smell of rotting flesh. 

He had to hold back a gag from the smell alone. Just in front of him he saw a zombie gnawing down on what he could only assume was a resort guest, if the clothing the corpse was wearing told him anything. Behind the zombie was what could only be described as a shrine to what he guessed was the man the zombie was before death.

Roach was glued in place by shock before he pulled the door closed as fast as he could and ran back in the direction he came from.

__

Roach booked it back up the hallway, into the tiny room where he slammed that door shut. He swore he could hear something following him. He still couldn’t believe what he saw, some freaky, zombie love shrine. Oh, and the resort may or may not be feeding their guests to said love-zombie.

He took the stairs three steps at a time and he slammed the door shut, wondering what the hell he should do.

_‘Burn this sucker down,’_ Spike would tell him while waving a lighter in his face, _”The only good zombie is a zombie on fire!”_

Roach nodded to the imaginary Spike and got his lighter out.

“Good idea,” he muttered, looking around for something to light up. 

The fridge?

Nah, refrigerators don’t burn, do they?

Uh.

Uh…

The couch!

Yeah! Those are real flammable, and he knew that from experience.

Just as he was about to set the loveseat ablaze a man bursted into the room, red faced and glaring.

“Hey!” The ‘employee’ said, glaring at Roach, “This is employees only! Didn’t you read the sign?!”

Well, he couldn’t just be honest and say, _”well sir, I was poking my nose in shit I shoulda just left be and I found your creepy ass love shrine down in the dungeon and I will now burn this place down!”_ could he?

Roach grinned widely and decided to try and talk his way out of the situation, just like Sketchy would do.

“Bold of you to assume I’m literate.”

Or not.

He held the flame up to the oh-so-flammable blanket on the couch and watched it go up in flames. The employee gaped at him like a fish as Roach shoved past him, knocking him down. 

Now all he had to do was find Sketchy and Skeezy and get the hell out of here.

“C’mon, where’re you two?” Roach was panting by the time he slid around the forth corner of the seemingly never ending maze of hallways in the resort.

How’d he get so lost, anyways?

He didn’t recognize _any_ of these halls. Was he getting deeper into the building? He had to find Sketchy and Skeezy before they got, like, hurt or something.

“Hey! You there!” someone shouted behind him and Roach glanced back to see another employee.

Screw that thought. If anyone was going to get hurt, it was probably him. 

Roach looked around quickly, assessing his choices. It looked like he had two options.

Keep running, get lost, hit a dead end and get caught.

Or improvise.

Roach grabbed a nearby vase and chucked it at the man approaching him, striking him right on the head.

Then he grabbed the table the vase was on and smashed the nearest window, jumping out and booking it across the small courtyard he couldn’t find a way onto before.

Across the courtyard was a kitchen with one employee, looking completely startled when Roach burst through the door.

The poor employee didn’t have a moment to react before Roach chucked a frying pan at his face

“Sorry man!” he shouted, pulling open the fridge in hopes of finding something for a very stupid idea. “Don’t y’all have any beer in this place?!”

All there was some fish and assorted fruits and vegetables. No fucking beer bottles.

Roach slammed the door shut and frantically looked around. 

“Shit, shiiiit….” Roach bounced on his feet and his eyes landed on the wine rack and he paused, “... that… might… work…”

He started over to the rack, unwinding his arm bandages as he went. 

“Okay, how did Spike do this…”

_”Soak the cloth then stuff it in the bottle. Light it up before you get going, then throw,”_ she had said once.

Roach uncorked a bottle and immediately held back the urge to gag at the smell. God that thing had a strong smell. He put the bottle down and ripped his arm bandages into shreds then balled them up to dose in the red wine. 

A loud shriek broke his rhythm and the blood ran from his face.

“I forgot to lock the zombie door,” he whispered, “Oh shit.”

He _had_ to find Sketchy and Skeezy now. Soon too, judging by how frantic the screams were becoming.

__

Zombies, fire, his impending doom?

Just a normal whatever-today-was for Roach! He should really try to get a hobby that didn’t lead to that though. Maybe if he lived he could try knitting or something.

Flames licked at his heels as he chucked the last wine bottle he had in the general direction of the zombie resort guest while he raced down the hallway. 

This situation looked bad, even for him.

“Hey! Roach!”

A sudden burst of flames behind him left Roach scrambling for cover, coughing and pulling his jacket in front of his face. He felt a hand grab the collar of his shirt, pulling him back away from the fire and up to his feet. Through the smoke, he made out the familiar grin of Sketchy with Skeezy right behind him, ending a Z with a steak knife to the temple. 

“This way!”

Roach didn’t waste a second to think, nearly falling over again as he tried to follow after the two.

__

“Damn, what the hell happened?!” Sketchy shouted over the wind as Roach huddled himself behind the driver's seat of the open top jeep they hijacked. A few boxes of odd supplies were piled in the back, one of which Roach was using as a seat. 

“I, uh, found a zombie and a shrine and panicked!” Now that they were driving further away the adrenaline was slowly draining itself from Roach’s mind and he was starting to feel like he was shutting down.

“What?!” Sketchy nearly hit the breaks but kept driving, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Wait! Does he mean the whole lover’s sacrifice thing that lady was talking about?” Skeezy interrupted and Roach momentarily lost the ability to hear as the button up he was still wearing suddenly became too suffocating.

He practically ripped the button up off, tossing his tie over the side of the jeep. He riffled through his bag for his vest or an old t-shirt he could wear.

“-is that what you saw kid?” Sketchy asked.

Roach blinked at him before shrugging.

“‘I saw was a zombie eatin’ lunch ‘n a shrine.” Roach pulled a worn out shirt over his head.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roach back at it again being an idiot

Roach poked at the small fire, bored out of his mind, while Sketchy and Skeezy searched through their bags for their worn out old map. Roach didn’t know exactly what they needed it for; maybe they were getting close to where they were headed?

“Cockroach-”

“Roach.”

“-can I check your bag? Maybe I slipped it in there…” Sketchy trailed off, scratching his beard.

Roach nodded. He didn’t have anything important in there to worry about, and besides, he trusted Sketchy to not mess with his stuff too much.

“Thanks, kid.” Sketchy grabbed the bag and started pulling the contents out before setting them in a neat pile to the side. Roach turned his attention back to the fire and watched the flames dance across the dry wood.

If he had firecrackers he would throw them in, but he didn’t have them anymore, which really sucked. 

“What’s this?” Sketchy asked, pulling Roach’s attention to him.

“Hmm- oh…”

Sketchy had a necklace clutched in his hand, a copper bullet shell pendant with a black crystal in the end. Roach felt his chest tighten. 

“Seems a bit too flashy for your taste, kid.” 

“Ain’t really mine,” Roach mumbled, his eyes flicking down to his hands. His vision blurred slightly as he remembered the day Spike bought that thing.

She was four dollars short to buy it from a vendor at their towns fall festival, so Roach gave her the extra money he had been saving up so she could get it. Spike wore that thing til the day she died.

__

 

Roach was tired, his brain wasn’t working right, and he didn’t want to be left alone.

But that was exactly what Spike was gonna do.

“Why,” he croaked at her, “why do you have ta go?”

Spike stopped sorting through her supplies, looking over at him with a frown, “Roach, yer sick. If I don’t look fer some meds ‘r somethin’ now we’ll be all out in a few days.”

“But-” Roach had to hold back a cough, “‘Mm doin’ better an’-an’ it’s dangerous ta be alone, so we should go together.”

“It’ll be more dangerous to take you! Yer a liability right now, Roach!” Spike snapped and he didn’t blame her, it was the forth time he’d brought it up in the past hour, but it didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt to hear.

He must’ve looked hurt cause she sighed and looked away.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean that… but I…” Spike was about as good with words as he was, but she was one of the few people he could read, “I… I don’t want you attracting zombies when you can’t run.”

“But I don’t want you to leave me ‘lone!” 

“I’ll be right back-”

“But what if you aren’t!” Roach cried, he was too dehydrated and sick to actually shout but the break in his voice held the sentiment, “what if you die and-and I don’t-I don’t want that!”

If they were under different circumstances, Spike would have teased him about being stupid. 

“Hey,” Spike started, her voice was as cool as it always was but she wasn’t glaring like she usually was, “I’m too cool to die, remember?”

Roach frowned, “Spike…”

She sighed again and moved to sit by him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders in an awkward hug. “I’m gonna be fine. And if you don’t believe me, then,” She pulled away and undid her necklace before pulling him down a bit so she could fasten it around his, “here.”

It took a moment for Roach’s brain to catch up with what she just did and when it did he reached up to grasp at the bullet-shell-quartz pendant. He looked down and then back at her with a confused expression.

“Why?” He didn’t understand how her necklace was supposed to make him feel better. It was her necklace, yes, but she didn’t give it to people. 

Why would she give it to him? Was she planning on dying? Is that why he had it??

“I ain’t gonna die, dumbass,” Spike socked him in the arm. Apparently he said that out loud— damn this fever was making him kinda loopy. “It’s ‘cause I want you to keep it safe! When I come back I’ll take it back!”

“Oh…” That made sense, he supposed.

Spike rolled her eyes, “Yeah, ya big dummy.” She looked out the window, “Now, I’ll be back in an hour, two tops. I want you to rest up until then, okay?”

Roach finally gave in, too tired to keep arguing with her and trying to convince her to stay. It was better that she left well before sundown anyways. 

“Alright, I’ll be right back,” Spike said, starting to leave once Roach started to settle down and drift off, still clutching at her necklace when he called after her.

“Spike, I…” He hesitated and cleared his throat, he had to get this out, just in case she was wrong and something bad did happen, “I love you…”

Spike stopped in the door and turned around. She licked her lips and thought for a moment while Roach considered how he might’ve just said the dumbest thing possible. Spike didn’t do emotions, he knew that, but he also knew that if one of them died, he wanted to have said it. Just once.

Spike still hadn’t said anything and he just decided to give up on waiting for a reaction. He should just go to sleep and apologize when she gets back. Just as he closed his eyes he heard her barely audible whisper.

“I love you too.”

With that the car door shut and he was alone to drift off just like she told him to do.

He slept fitfully, dreaming of zombies and fire and explosions.

Wait.

Wait, he wasn’t dreaming anymore, that was an actual explosion.

Roach sat up as quickly as he could, looking around the car for an answer.

Spike wasn’t back yet. There was an explosion. His chest tightened and he had to push through his lethargy to get out of the car. 

Roach fell face first out of the car door, his legs trapped in the blanket Spike made him bundle up in, and he ate gravel. When he managed to get untangled and look up he saw a group of people he didn’t recognize running out of the building he knew Spike went in to.

Then the second, louder, explosion went off and the building began to crumble.

Roach couldn’t react. It didn’t feel real. This had to be a fever dream.

When his mind finally caught up to the present he screamed. 

He didn’t know what else to do. Spike was still in there! He didn’t see her leave, she would have came back to him if she left!

He pushed himself off the ground and stumbled over his feet, trying to sprint to the building as the dust started to settle. He ignored the sudden wave of dizziness and the stinging pain from scraping his palms open on the gravel road, focusing on trying to find Spike in the rubble.

Maybe she was still okay. 

She had to still be okay. If she wasn’t then…

He didn’t want to think about that. She was his best friend, he loved her in more ways than one and he… he couldn’t lose her. He wasn’t strong enough, he was her sidekick and he wouldn’t be able to survive without her. He didn’t want to have to survive on his own, as selfish as it was.

He’d already lost everyone else. 

He stumbled his way to the building, coughing from the smoke and the sickness the entire time. He wasn’t sure what he was planning on doing but he found himself on his knees, digging through the rubble near where he thought the entrance of the building had been. 

Roach would’ve been out, digging through the rubble until he collapsed from exhaustion or his fingers fell off if he wasn’t ran off by zombies. 

He ended up finding a small shed to hide in not to far away from the building while the zombies the explosion drew in cleared out and he sweated his fever out. He didn’t know how long that took but he was sure that enough time had passed that if Spike was alive and out there she would’ve found him— or if she was trapped in the rubble, she would’ve died by then.

He had lost her, he was alone.

__

Roach stared at the necklace still swinging in Sketchy’s hand before looking at the fire. He had shoved that thing in his backpack over six months ago after her death ‘cause he couldn’t bare to wear it anymore. 

Then he put on a happy face and started traveling around aimlessly for months, barely surviving but pretending that he was really alive. Trying to delay the inevitable breakdown until he met Sketchy and Skeezy. Now he felt like he truly wanted to survive again but he couldn’t stop from remembering the past and getting sucked back into shutdowns when the past became too much, too overwhelming.

He hated it.

“Roach?” Skeezy asked and both men were watching him closely.

“Ain’t really mine, it’s the last thing a friend gave me,” Roach said and turned back to the fire, hoping they didn’t hear the strain in his voice, “jus’ put it back, please?”

“Yeah, okay, kid.” 

Roach didn’t feel okay. He felt sick remembering what happened. He poked around at his dinner before handing it over to Skeezy with the excuse of ‘I’m not hungry, wake me for my shift,’ before turning into his sleeping bag for the night. He didn’t really sleep much though. Not with the memory of his friend haunting his mind.

When he did sleep it was restless. He kept waking up, straining to hear for an explosion.

When Sketchy woke him up that morning Roach felt like he was in a haze. He felt like there was pressure on his skull, preventing him from thinking.

“You okay, Roach?” Skeezy asked, putting his hand on his shoulder.

“‘Mm fine,” He muttered, waving him off. He really wasn’t but he didn’t want to talk about it. Not now, not ever.

“Alright, if you say so…”

Sketchy cleared his throat, “So, we’re gonna need to go on another supply run. The stuff we… acquired from the couples resort is almost all gone.”

Roach nodded, they were starting to run low on food and clean water which was gonna be a problem soon enough. 

“So we’re gonna try to find some place with supplies or we need to find someoneto trade with,” Sketchy continued, clasping his hands together loudly in front of him, making Roach visabley flinch.

Both Sketchy and Skeezy hesitated a moment.

“Are you sure your okay?” Sketchy asked.

Roach nodded and waved him off too, “‘mm fine. Jus’ fine.”

__

“Map says we gotta go this way,” Sketchy said, folding the paper back up, “but it looks like we may have a problem.”

They had stopped at a bridge that had half sunken into the river below and was completely flooded with murky water.

“Well, can’t drive across it,” Roach said, looking out over the flooded bridge from where he was perched on a rock. It wasn’t that bad, the water didn’t look like it was even up to his hips, but he didn’t know what was lurking below the surface. “Should we go another way?”

“I don’t think there’s another way through that isn’t flooded or too far out,” Sketchy said, “But, if we follow the guard rails we should be fine.”

Roach sighed, something was telling him this was a bad idea but he’d had that feeling a lot lately and for the most part nothing turned out as disastrous as his gut was telling him. So he ignored it and nodded.

“Yeah, okay.”

Roach hopped down to grab his pack and whatever else Sketchy and Skeezy needed him to carry. 

Skeezy tapped him on the shoulder as he was packing up the rest of the stuff they were gonna carry.

“Here,” Skeezy handed him a plastic bag, “For your ipod, don’t wanna get that wet, right?”

Roach gave him a small smile and took it from him, “Thanks.”

He put his ipod in the bag before tucking it into one of his backpack’s pockets.

“All ready?” Sketchy asked, grinning when he received nods from the both of them, “Then let’s go.”

The water looked still on the surface but as soon as Roach started wading in, he could feel an undercurrent and he gripped the side rail. And worse was the water wasn’t clear so he had to feel around with his feet before each step. 

Roach gritted his teeth against his unease and the fact he was gonna be soaking wet after this. He hated that. But, maybe if he focused on his hate for wearing wet jeans and socks he could distract himself from everything else.

He kept wading through the water, half listening to Sketchy and Skeezy talking about a con idea from a few feet in front of him. The undercurrent was almost enough to knock him over in a couple of places

Something hit his shin out of nowhere and Roach nearly slipped into the water when he stumbled forwards and let out a startled yelp. 

“Roach!” Both Sketchy and Skeezy shouted, turning around just as they heard him slip up. Both of them waded back to him to pull him back out of the water.

“You alright?” Sketchy asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I-” Roach winced as he tried to move his leg free from whatever snagged him and felt around in the water from what was hurting him. His fingers wrapped around some thin metal and he winced again when he realized he got snagged by some stray barbed wire fencing and maybe a post that was floating around. “I’m fine, my pants just got caught on something.”

He tried to keep walking again but realized he was still caught in the wire. Frowning, he reached back into the water to untangle it from his leg only to realize he was making it worse and tightening the wire around his leg. Wincing, he tried again and this time freed his leg after only a little struggle.

“Roach?” Skeezy asked and he looked up at the both of them, “You sure your alright?”

“Huh? Yeah! Just couldn’t get myself free,” Roach said, standing back up straight, “”mm all good, now.”

For a second it looked like they didn’t believe him and Roach felt irrationally panicked about it for some reason.

“Well that’s good, kid! For a minute I thought a Z got you!” Sketchy said after a moment with a grin, “Say did we ever tell you about the zombie flood-”

“The zombie flood in New Jersey, yeah, you told me. I’m startin’ to think yer running out of stories to tell me,” Roach said, relieved for the change in subject.

Sketchy scoffed and Skeezy shook his head.

“Kid, we got enough stories to tell you a new one everyday for the rest of your life.”

Roach rolled his eyes but followed after them as Sketchy started to tell a story he was certain he’d never told him, while Roach ignored the stinging pain in his leg.

__

By the time the sun set they found a small, abandoned house they were gonna haul up in for the night and the first thing Roach did was search the bedrooms for a new pair of pants and boots he could wear while his own dried. 

He found a pair of jeans about his size and shucked off his wet clothing. He was just about to put on the new ones when he noticed his leg, blood streaking down his shin from several semi-deep scratches and punctures from the barbed wire. 

Hesitantly he touched one of the wounds and hissed at it. He should really clean the wounds up. He sat down on the floor and reached for his backpack only to find all the medical supplies he had was another roll of bandages he was saving for when the ones around his arms got dirty enough to change. 

But, at least he can bandage himself up, the wounds weren’t too bad so that’s good enough. He was also in water anyways so that should mean the wounds were pretty clean as they were, right? 

Roach wiped his leg clean of blood before wrapping it up in the bandages he had, and redressed himself before meeting back up with Sketchy and Skeezy where they were trying to start a fire in the living room fireplace. 

Both of them barely spared him a glance as Roach collapsed onto the old couch adjacent to the fireplace while tossing his wet clothes on the floor in front of him. He frown and tried to get comfortable while remembering what he should do with a leg wound. 

Elevation and resting it where all that was coming to mind so he kicked his feet up on the armrest and watched Sketchy try to light the fireplace before speaking.

“Is it fine if I take a nap?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure kid. Rest up,” Sketchy waved vaguely back at him but Skeezy shot him a mildly concerned look which Roach just ignored in favor of plugging his earbuds in his ipod and choosing a playlist to go to sleep too. When he woke up he’d explore the house a bit more and maybe tag one of the rooms if he still had some paint with him. But for now there was no reason not to rest up if he wasn’t gonna be doing anything.

__

Roach wasn’t healing up as quickly as he wanted. But he shrugged it off, he was using the bandages he used for his arms to make sure the wound was covered and changed them until he was out of ones to wrap his arms and then he just left the bandages on for the past day. He probably should have healed up more by this point, though, from what he knew. And the slight discoloration of the wounds was a little worrying. 

But the phrase was ‘it gets worse before it gets better’, right? So that was all that was going on, it was getting a little worse and then he’d be all better in no time.

Yeah. Sure it hurt and was a little gross to look at but it wasn’t like his leg was gonna fall off or anything. It was just a little inconvenient to have the wounds constantly throbbing with every step he took.

“-ight, Roach? Roach!”

“Huh?” Roach snapped out of his thoughts and blinked at Sketchy and Skeezy who were looking at him with concern.

“I asked if… Roach are you alright?” Sketchy asked, “you look like you’re about to faint.”

“I,” Roach paused, taking a deep breath, he was really starting to feel warm all over for some reason and wanted nothing more than to just lay down for a bit but he shook his head, “I’m fine, think I’ve just been in the sun too long, it’s hot out.”

Yeah, that was probably it. He was just getting overheated.

“Well, we’re probably not far from another place we can stay, think you can make it till then?” Skeezy asked.

“Yeah, let’s keep moving.”

Not another half hour away there was a house that looked to be abandoned just like the last one they were in and hopefully it was cause Roach didn’t know if he could fight back with how out of it he was feeling. Sketchy and Skeezy took the lead in searching the house with Roach trailing behind them to make sure nothing would sneak up on them. There was a single zombie in the basement but other than that the house was clear for them to stay the night in.

Roach was leaning heavily against the wall across from the basement door as Sketchy did one last look down there. He closed his eyes for a moment before startling back awake as Sketchy came back up the stairs, loudly proclaiming he found nothing of use and they should check the rest of the house out.

Roach nodded, making it one step before stumbling over on his bad leg and blacking out a moment right before he hit the ground. He came to moments later to Sketchy and Skeezy talking to him and shaking him awake, his head hurt bad, but his leg hurt a lot worse than his head did.

A cool hand was pressed against his forehead and he leaned into it, it felt so good against his fevered skin. Why was he so warm? Nothing was making sense, was he getting sick?

“Shit, Sketchy, he’s burning up. We need to get him to lay down somewhere.”

Roach was being pulled up by his arms and he made a pained noise as he put pressure on his bad leg. It hurt so bad, maybe his leg _was_ gonna fall off after all.

“Yeah, we hear you, Roach,” Sketchy said, pulling his arm over his shoulder to take the weight off his legs. With that he was guided to the nearest bedroom and deposited on the bed. Sketchy and Skeezy were talking in hushed whispers while Roach fought falling asleep right there.

“Alright, try to find that,” Skeezy said to Sketchy after a few hushed words were exchanged and the bedroom door was closed the next second. 

“What’s going on with you?” Skeezy asked. “Are you hurt somewhere?”

“‘Mm hot ‘n my leg hurts,” Roach muttered, not quite able to figure out what to say. 

“Your leg?” Skeezy looked at him, che king Roach’s uninjured leg and then his injured one, making a shocked noise at the bandage, “What happened?!”

“The river, you saw me get hurt…” Roach was beginning to fall asleep when Skeezy started to undo the bandages, “What’re you doing?” 

Dammit that hurt!

“Roach, this is infected- why didn’t you tell one of us?” Skeezy sounded hurt for some reason and Roach didn’t like that.

“It wasn’t bad, didn’t wanna…” He was gonna pass out again, “didn’t wanna worry you…”

Roach didn’t get to hear was Skeezy said next before he fell unconscious. 

__

Roach felt awful when he came back too, his head was fuzzy and his body felt like it was made of lead but he still forced himself to wake up despite how much he just wanted to pass out again. something was telling him to wake up.

No, wait, _someone_ was telling him to wake up.

“C’mon, wake up,” someone was telling him. “Just sit up and drink this.”

“Why,” he groaned, frowning as something was pressed against his mouth and he barely registered it to be a water bottle. Reluctantly he drank before pushing the bottle away and falling back onto the mattress. 

“So, Sketchy’s gone out to look for some more supplies,” the person with the water bottle, Skeezy he figured, said, “We didn’t have much in the way of medicine and… this is bad.”

Roach nodded like he understood what Skeezy was telling him. He was so damn tired he just wanted to sleep for a week but he stayed awake to at least look like he was listening. 

“We did get to clean up your leg though,” Skeezy continued, getting up from the bed to do something but he kept talking, “with some antibiotics you may be fine…”

He nodded again, letting Skeezy talk about whatever he was talking about until he stopped talking. Roach opened his eyes, unsure when he closed them, to see Skeezy looking back at him with an expression he couldn’t decipher before he shook his head.

“Nevermind, get some rest,” Skeezy said and Roach did as he was told.

__

Roach groaned as someone grabbed his leg, waking him back up again.

Why does he keep getting woken up? Wait, when did he fall asleep last? Skeezy was just talking to him.

He struggled to think before looking around. He was still in that same room but now it wasn’t Skeezy waking him up to drink something but a strange lady unwrapping his leg.

He should probably say something to let her know he was awake.

“Hey, those are mine,” he managed to say after a moment of thinking over what to say to some stranger taking his bandages.

The lady looked up, surprised he was awake maybe, and stared at him for a moment before she shook her head.

“I’ll give them right back, just let me check out your leg first,” she said and he nodded because that sounded pretty reasonable.

“Okie,” he said and closed his eyes again. 

“How long has he been like this?” he heard her ask someone. 

“How long has his _leg_ been like this? About a day, maybe, he cut his leg up a few days ago though.” Hey, that sounded like Sketchy, he thought Skeezy said he left? Was he back? How long has he been asleep?

“And you didn’t do anything?” Oh, that lady sounded mad! 

“Well, he didn’t tell us about it!” Sketchy sounded mad too, but yeah, yeah no that was a dumb thing. He shouldn’t’ve done that. He probably shoulda said something, but in his defense he didn’t think it was this bad.

“Well you’re lucky I have stuff to help him.” Oh that sounded good. “But he still might not make it with how bad it’s gotten.” Oh that sounded not as good. “If he’s lucky he’ll survive but… you need to be prepared for the worst.”

“Ya better mercy me now then.” Roach said.

There was a pause before Sketchy sighed, “Roach, go back to sleep.”

“Alright.” He took that as permission and fell back asleep almost immediately.

__

“How are you feeling, kiddo?” He blinked up at a blurry face framed by blonde hair and felt a hand on his head, there was something so warm and familiar about this and it settled deep in his chest. 

“Ma?” He asked, feeling her pause brushing his hair out of his face before continuing. It reminded him those times he got sick and had to stay home from school with his ma taking care of him. 

“How are you feeling?” She asked again, still brushing back his hair, “Better, sweetheart?”

“‘Mm doin’...” he thought about it for a moment, he wasn’t sure what she meant by better but he was tired, “‘Mm tired… I feel tired…”

God, just saying that took a lot out of him, what happened? Roach backtracked and tried to remember, he got hurt and got sick. And… and there was a doctor lady and Sketchy told him to go to bed and now his ma was here and… his momma was dead. His ma was dead and he didn’t know who this person was.

He started a bit and looked up at his ma, or who he thought was his ma, and his vision cleared just enough to see the lady brushing his hair wasn’t her.

“You ain’t my ma,” he croaked, voice breaking just a bit.

The lady gave him a sad smile before shaking her head.

“I’m not, but I think your mom would want you to rest now.” 

Roach wanted to argue or to at least ask who she was but he wasn’t in any shape to do so, so he just nodded and closed his eyes, pretending that the lady really was his ma as he fell back asleep.

__

Roach was in and out of consciousness for the next few days, barely there enough to take the meds the nice doctor lady gave him and drink some water with it. A few times he managed to get some food down without getting sick and he was able to answer simple questions but for the most part he was out of it.

Then he woke up without feeling like he was gonna pass right back out and found he didn’t know what time it was and barely remembered what happened the past few days. 

He looked around the room and figured it was probably about noon from the sunlight and he frowned. His leg was wrapped up still and he didn’t know where Sketchy and Skeezy were.

He should probably find them, let them know he was awake and alive. Or something.

He just really wanted to see them again.

Roach swung his legs over the edge of the bed and tried to stand up. He hissed at how much his leg still hurt but tried to stand until someone opened the door.

It was that lady again.

They stared at each other for a minute before she sighed and closed the door behind her.

“You really shouldn’t be trying to stand if you want to get better.”

Roach sat back down and looked away a little sheepishly. “Yeah… sorry uh… I don’t… did you tell me yer name?”

“Dr. Emily Kinkaid,” she introduced with a soft smile. “But you can call me Emily. Your friend, Sketchy, found my settlement and brought me here,” she explained, “and it’s a good thing he did. You’ve been in some pretty rough shape these past few days.”

“Oh, yeah… I don’t really… wait, so you’re a doctor?” 

Dr. Kinkaid— Emily— smiled and nodded, crossing the room to sit beside him on the bed, “Yes, I was an ER doctor before the world- well, before all of this.”

“Oh, cool…” Roach scratched the back of his neck and wrinkled his nose, “So, um, have you seen… Sketchy brought you here, right? Are he and Skeezy still here?”

He tried to keep the question casual, but Roach would be lying if he said the ‘yes’ he got as an answer wasn’t the best thing he had heard in a long time.

“I,” Dr. Emily paused and stared at him the same way every single doctor he had encountered looked at him when they were trying to figure something out, “I have a few questions for you, about Sketchy and Skeezy actually.”

“Uh, yeah?” This couldn’t be good, he thought.

“Well, let’s start from the beginning, how’d you meet them?”

“Oh! I helped them out, and they gave me shoes for it,” Roach shrugged, “They needed some help painting a van and I stuck around.”

That was the short version anyways, but he doubted she wanted to hear about all the little details.

“Uh-huh, and how did you get hurt?” 

“We were crossing a bridge that got flooded and I got stuck in some barbed wire,” Roach frowned, “it wasn’t bad, or it didn’t seem like it was bad, so I just bandaged it up and didn’t say anything…”

Dr. Emily just looked at him like she didn’t believe him fully but she sighed and shook her head, “So you’re safe with them? They don’t hurt you or anything?”

“No? I mean I’m safe, yeah, but they don’t hurt me. I mean…” Roach paused and thought over what he was gonna say, “They get me outta trouble more than anything else.”

“Well, it’s not uncommon to find abused kids in the apocalypse sticking with their abusers because they don’t have many options to stay safe,” Emily said and it clicked for Roach why she was asking this.

“Yeah, I get what your saying but, they aren’t like that, they are about the only people I've met yet that aren’t like that, actually,” Roach said, “Trust me.”

“I…” Emily clearly didn’t believe him fully but she nodded anyways, “If you’re sure you’re safe. If you aren’t you can always come back to my settlement.”

“I understand,” Roach nodded and didn’t point out how any settlements were suspect to him at this point, “but, I’m safe with them.”

Emily didn’t look convinced but she sighed and got up anyways, “Alright… I’ll go tell them your up.”

Roach waited until she left to sit back on the bed a bit more comfortably while he waited. Part of him was a little antsy and he was wondering what he’d say to them about this whole situation. He had been dumb and probably cost them a lot of supplies and it was understandable if they were mad at him. But another part of him just really wanted to see them again, he didn’t know if they had been with him while he was out of it but even if they had been he didn’t remember at all. 

There was a knock on the door that brought him back to reality, Skeezy was the first one to come in, shortly followed by Sketchy and then Dr. Kinkaid and for a moment they just stared at each other in silence.

“So… How’re y’all?” Roach asked to break the silence, it was getting suffocating.

Sketchy gave him a look that reminded Roach of the one his ma would give him after he’d done something especially reckless and shook his head. 

“We’re better now that you aren’t dying on us,” Skeezy answered for the both of them, “What about you? Feeling better?”

Roach scratched the back of his neck, “Yeah, uh… yeah. I’m feeling a lot better, thanks.”

Skeezy smiled a bit before pulling a chair up to the side of the bed to ask a few more questions, Roach answering them while Sketchy just watched them. After a few questions about his leg he asked if he was hungry, and he was, he didn’t even notice how hungry he was until Skeezy brought it up. 

While he was eating, Emily sat her bag on the bed and searched through it, bringing out a bottle of pills to hand to Sketchy.

“Now that he’s awake, I’m going to go back to my settlement,” she said, handing it over to Sketchy, “these are the rest of the antibiotics and they should last him a week.” She turned back to Roach. “It’s possible you’ll feel much better before you finish the doses, but you still have to complete them all to keep the infection from coming back,” she told him, almost sternly. 

He could tell she knew what she was talking about, so he just nodded. 

She stood to leave and Sketchy shook her hand. “Thank you so much, Doctor,” he said. “We are very grateful for you helping our boy. Come, I’ll walk you out, make sure you get back to your settlement safe and sound.”

Emily followed him out of the room, but they stopped outside. Roach could still hear their conversation, though he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to.

“Of course, the payment you were promised-“ Sketchy started. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Emily interrupted. “We don’t need anything.”

“But I’m sure that the antibiotics are valuable to your group.”

“It’s fine, we have a chemist who can produce penicillin,” she assured. “It’s more important to me that Roach is healthy and stays that way, and that’s a lot easier for you keep all the supplies you’ve got,” she said. “There’s not a lot of kids his age left, he deserves to opportunity to grow up. Too many kids didn’t get that chance.”

Sketchy was silent for a beat. “I agree.”

“So, you promise to keep him safe and alive, I’ll consider that my payment.”

“You have my word, good Doctor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, there is an almost completely different alternate version of this chapter because we rewrite 75% of it after it was finished the first time.


	10. Chapter 10

Day One was a weird day for Roach. It was a field trip to a local art museum and while he usually loved art, it was boring as hell. But he sometimes wondered what woulda happened if he wasn’t on that trip. What woulda happened if it was just a normal school day and he had been at school when day one hit?

__

Roach’s mama’s pottery was a lot cooler than any of the junk he had seen so far today. Even if her pieces didn’t turn out the way she wanted them, she’d at least let him break them for fun. He wasn’t allowed to break even the ugliest of pieces here though.

But, even as bored as he was, he was glad to be out of the classroom with his friends and not struggling with math or some bullshit. He held onto the velvet rope in front of some of the modern art pieces and tuned out his teacher’s voice.

“Mister Jones, please pay attention,” Mr. Peterson, his teacher, interrupted his thoughts, “and do not touch any of the pieces. Even _you_ should know not to do that.”

Roach scowled to himself and rolled his eyes, of course he knew that! 

“Can I go look at the old stuff again?” he asked, ignoring his teacher.

“I don’t trust you to go alone-”

“Can I go too then?” Monty asked. Mr. Peterson seemed to consider it for a moment. He always made a point not to trust Roach, but Monty was well known among all his teachers for being one of the most responsible kids in his grade, let alone Roach’s friend-group. Even Mr. Peterson knew that.

One by one, his other friends piped up with the same question.

“Fine, but I expect you all on your best behavior or you’ll be banned from all upcoming trips,” his teacher finally said, letting them go back to the ancient art exhibit.

“God, what’s his problem?” Spike groused as soon as they were out of earshot. Spike was always a little mad at something or someone, but right now it seemed to be directed at their art teacher; not that Roach could blame her. 

“I dunno, but look at it this way, at least we didn’t have to turn in the homework today,” Monty said, popping the knuckles in his hand one at a time as they walked.

Roach blinked. “Wait, what homework?”

“The… english homework? Twenty five vocab words? Due tomorrow?” Monty had a mixture of amusement and exasperation on his face and Roach laughed. His friend shook his head, pushing back a lock of reddish-brown hair as it fell in his face.

“Oh… Right! I remember now.. Uh, what where the vocab words?”

His friends sniggered at him and rolled their eyes.

“I- I can he-hel-help you later, Cricket,” Ryter said, smiling at Roach. Of all his friends, Ryter was always the sweetest and most sensitive, and he always wanted to help people. He was also riddled with anxiety, though, with a stutter he had yet to grow out of, so he had a tough time in their school. Roach and his friends always tried to be there for him, and Ryter always returned the sentiment.

“Sweet! Thanks!” 

Soon he and his friends divided themselves to take notes on the art pieces for their report later. It was going smoothly.

A shriek from a little ways off in the museum made them all jump.

“What the fuck?” Spike shouted, maybe a bit too loud.

“Geez,” Tabby said, looking around, her service dog Leo letting out a soft woof at her side. “Can’t people behave here? I mean, it’s a museum,” she said with a sigh. With her electric blue hair and punkish style, Tabby looked like a trouble maker. But, though she could be a bit of a daredevil sometimes, she was usually a voice of reason in their group-- when she wasn’t distracted by something, at least. Luckily, she had Leo to get her back on track.

“It’s probably Billy or someone being stupid,” MayBell said, maybe a bit too loud, copying down some notes from the plaque in front of the sculpture they were studying. MayBell had always been a tough girl to miss, loud and sweet and always speaking her mind. Her style reflected her attitude, standing out in her bright pinks and a new wig almost every day, sparkly bandaids coving the marks she made picking at her skin.

Roach frowned. “Mr. Peterson should be payin’ more attention to them and stop givin’ me such a hard time,” he said, turning back to the art piece after a minute. “He just doesn’t like that I like to do art differently than him.”

A few minutes passed before they were disturbed again.

“Ma’am? Ma’am! Please calm down!” The small group of teenagers turned to look behind them, where a pair of security guards were attempting to lead a struggling woman towards the main doors.

One of the guards spoke into a radio on his shoulders. “Can someone please order an ambulance?” he requested.

The woman snarled, snapping her jaws at the guards who tried to keep her at arms-length between them. Black liquid streaked down her face and blouse, her skin a sickly color and eyes clouded over. The kids stared in shock, Ryter edging behind Roach and Tabby putting a hand on Monty’s arm.

“Isn’t that Ms. Sherwin?” MayBell whispered. Roach blinked. It definitely looked like the aide that had accompanied their class on the trip. 

Spike nodded. “She was fine on the bus ride here...” she said, sounding as stunned as Roach felt.

“Sh-sh-sh-sh-“ Ryter paused, taking a deep breath, “Sh-she looks real s-sick,” he finally managed.

As they watched the guards try and encourage her towards the front of the building, Ms. Sherwin pulled herself from their grasps and tackled one to the ground. Her jaws clamped down on the man’s throat, a scream filling the air that was quickly echoed down further in the building by multiple voices.

“Shit!” Roach shouted, grabbing two of his friends at random and pulling them away. “What the hell’s going on?”

Ryter clung to his arm. “T-t-t-terrorists?”

Roach opened his mouth to respond but before he could, about a half-dozen people- all with that same discolored skin and black fluid down their fronts- came rushing from the way the guards had came.

He recognized some as his classmates. Mr. Peterson was not far behind them, his dress shirt stained with blood from a gaping wound in his stomach. Roach felt his stomach turn and he almost vomited.

Other museum patrons and staff ran past, shrieking in terror, some being tackled to the ground by the ones chasing them. 

“Those don’t look like terrorists!” Monty shouted, beginning to usher them all towards the front of the building as fast as possible.

Their teacher was tall, and fit for an art teacher, and he was on them faster than seemed humanly possible. He grabbed for Monty, who desperately tried to push him away. “Mr. Peterson! Stop! Please! You’re sick!” he cried. 

MayBell came up behind him, smashing her heavy backpack against the teacher’s back over and over, but the man didn’t seem to notice at all.

Roach thought fast, grabbing an old vase off a stand and smashing it over Mr. Peterson’s head. It seemed to daze him enough for Monty to shove him off and trip him to the ground.

“Quick! Move!” Spike shouted from behind a large stone statue. Roach, Monty, and MayBell dove out of the way as the art piece toppled over onto the body of their teacher, leaving Spike and Tabby standing behind it, panting.

Looking back Roach always wondered why that first kill didn’t… mess them up like it shoulda, like all the other kills the first few times. Maybe it didn’t set in or something. Roach could never figure that out.

“Come on, we gotta,” Monty panted, looking around, “We gotta get outta here… Cliff’s garage ain’t far from here. He’ll know what ta do.”

Cliff always knew what to do, he was six years older than Roach and had had custody over Monty for the past three years and had always been there to get them out of trouble. 

The streets outside of the museum were hectic, people and zombies running around, everyone was screaming and Roach had to fight the instinct to curl up and hide at how overwhelming it was. They had to find Cliff, then they had to go and find the rest of their parents and family.

__

That’s how their day one started. They found Cliff and tried to save as many people as possible before booking it out of town but… but, they never went back to see what had happened to their school. What happened to the other kids there? Did the nice lunch lady survive? What about those kids that used to make fun of them? 

Roach would always wonder who died that day.

If their school was anything like the one here he doubted there was a lot of survivors just judging but the amount of zombie children milling around. It was kinda sad to see a bunch of kids that woulda been around his age if they hadn’t been turned z.

Roach looked around the abandoned school they were raiding, pushing away all the thoughts he was having about day one to focus on other things.

Things like how annoying and over-stimulating the fluorescent lights overhead were starting to become, the bright lights buzzing and flickering in and out. He almost wished they didn’t turn on that generator they found out back, but at least they could see properly, and Sketchy did say that thing would probably only power this place for about an hour at the most. They would be out of there soon enough anyways.

He took a quick glance behind him at Sketchy and Skeezy who were talking quietly together.

“Hey ’mm gunna search for some art stuff?” He figured the school might have an art room where he could find some supplies, and he’d at least tell them where he was gonna go, just in case he ran into anymore… problems.

Problems like cutting up his leg or finding a zombie shrine room.

“Huh, oh wait, Cockroach-”

“Jus’ Roach.”

“We are actually here for a reason,” Sketchy started, “you know what this place is, right?”

Roach wrinkled his nose, looking around again, “A buildin’? A buildin’ to raid and vandalize and maybe burn down?” he said, shrugging his shoulders. 

“No- No! You need to stop burning places down!” Sketchy said and Roach would be worried he was mad about his pyro-tendencies if it weren’t for his smile.

“Can I still tag places?” Roach asked.

“Yes. But to answer my first question, we’re in a school, right?”

“Yes sirree.”

“And what do you do in school?” Sketchy gestured around them like it was obvious.

“Suffer.”

“Wait- no! Well.. No, no what did you learn in school?”

“Does this conversation have a point to it?” 

“Yes! You, young Cockroach-”

“Roach.” 

“Are going to learn something!”

Roach groaned, “What? Why?”

He had done enough learning before the apocalypse, he could read and do math well enough to get by and he could confidently say he was done with school forever. 

Sketchy and Skeezy looked at each other then at him.

“We’ll, we can’t have you helping us out with our scams if you don’t know the basics,” Sketchy said.

Roach rolled his eyes, “Why didn’tcha lead wit’ that?” They’ve know him for how long? And they still didn’t get that he needed things spelled out for him to understand it? “Sure, I’ll do some learnin’.”

The first room they searched was baren save for the reception desk and a skeleton on the ground. 

“So, kid, remember how you tricked those people back when we first met?” Sketchy asked, looking behind the reception desk while Roach stood guard at the door and Skeezy watched Sketchy’s back.

“Yeah? What about it?” He glanced back at them.

“Well, it was a good start, you have promise but you lack tact,” Sketchy said a bit bluntly, pulling drawers open and rifling through what sounded like a lot of paper. 

“What does that mean?” Roach was starting to get bored just standing there so he pulled out a can of sea blue and started drawing on the open door in front of him

“It means you are gonna say the wrong thing while lying to someone and get yourself killed,” Sketchy said, “You don’t know how to present your story when your talking and people are gonna know what’s up.”

“So how do I get tact then?”

“Well, first off you’re doing pretty good with the fake eye contact. If I didn’t know any better then I’d say you were good at holding it. Almost too good, you gotta look away and make sure people look at where you’re looking too,” Sketchy explained. “It’s a psychological thing, you get people to start mirroring you, following what you’re doing, it’s like you hack their brain into trusting you.”

“Ya know, this is all starting to sound like ABA,” Roach muttered, more to hisself than to them.

“You went through ABA?” Skeezy asked.

“Yeah but it ain’t important, just… keep telling me what to do.”

“Well, I mean…” Sketchy said, “You can’t do things you’re uncomfortable with either, ‘cause people will pick up on that and even if you’re telling the truth they might think you’re lying.”

“... So how do I do stuff that doesn’t make me uncomfortable but does make people believe me?”

Sketchy stood from behind the desk, dusting off his hands on his jacket. “Takes practice and knowing your limits ahead’a time,” he said. “If you look comfortable with what you’re doing and what you’re talking about, people will believe almost everything.”

“So I gotta be confident?” Roach asked, frowning slightly to himself as he turned back to his tag, adding long antennas to the cockroach he had started. 

“Exactly!”

He was doomed. 

__

“Okay, so it’s better that I remember my story before hand, but if I have to make one up on the spot I should try to use one I’ve already used then? Right?”

“Well, sometimes, but you have to be careful, word travels surprisingly fast even without internet,” Sketchy spoke from experience more than likely, “So try not to use the same scam too many times… we learned that the hard way.”

Roach snorted, he could only guess which scam they used one too many times and pissed off the wrong people. “Yeah? What happened?” he asked.

“Long story, let’s just say we aren’t welcome in Rhode Island anymore,” Skeezy said offhandedly as he opened a cabinet full of classroom supplies. 

“That’s the really tiny state, right?”

“Right, but this isn’t a geography lesson. As I was saying,” Sketchy said, “You gotta learn to think on the fly sometimes, come up with new ideas, which you are good at.”

“I am?” Roach asked in a bit of disbelief.

“Yeah! You came up with that zombie hoard story on the fly when we first met, and you’re always tagging shit with new ideas. Plus, there was back at the resort, didn’t you say you ran into a staff member there? You had to have talked your way out of that, right?”

Roach shrugged, “Not really, I just lit a couch on fire and ran.”

Sketchy stopped and looked at him before shaking his head.

“Maybe we should figure out a way to mix fire in with con work.”

__

They took a small break in the con lesson when they found the cafeteria and focused on raiding the kitchen. Roach scowled at all the leftover food, he hated cafeteria food pre-apocalypse and most of it looked worse now, if that was possible. 

“Ya know,” Roach started, holding up a pb&j package, “My friend once found a bug in her mashed potatoes in a school lunch before.”

“Roach, we ate crickets for breakfast two days ago,” Sketchy reminded, looking into a box of potato flakes. Whatever was inside must not have looked very good because he just shrugged and tossed it over his shoulder. 

“Yeah, but we meant to eat bugs then.” He tossed the sandwich to the side after considering whether or not he’d risk it. There were some leftover snack cakes that he was going to eat, it had been forever since he had had a little Debbie.

He pulled one of the stale cakes from his pack, deciding to have it now. Popping it open, he took a big bite when Skeezy decided to ask him a question. 

“I take it you had a tough time in school?” he asked curiously.

“Mhm,” Roach mumbled around the cake, quickly swallowing it and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Didn’t everyone?”

Sketchy tossed his partner a box of dried pasta, catching him slightly off-guard. “Kid’s got a point.”

__

After raiding the cafeteria for all the food they could find they searched the rest of the school, Roach was mostly just looking for some sort of art room to see if he could find anything useful to him. Several empty classrooms later and they found a small room that had artwork outside on the wall and a door with rainbow hand prints and he almost jumped for joy. This was easily the best find of their trip.

Roach rummaged through some of the drawers in the art room, hoping to find something he could use for tagging or maybe even a mostly unused sketch book, when Sketchy decided to restart the lesson.

“So, Roach, how do you feel about coming up with cons now?” Sketchy asked. “Think you understand how we do it?”

Roach frowned, “I mean, not really. It’s all over my head ya know?” he said, inspecting a pack of worn down crayons.

Sketchy scratched his beard in thought while Roach went back to rummaging. He could hear Skeezy say something to Sketchy in a hushed voice which seemed to give him an idea.

“Let’s look at this a little differently then,” Sketchy said.

They pushed a few desk together and Roach sat across from Sketchy and Skeezy

“Alright, we’re gonna try this from a different angle,” Sketchy said, pushing a piece of paper someone had left behind with a few sketches on it and one with a complete drawing.

Roach looked down at the papers and then back at Sketchy, even more confused than before. 

“I don’t get it,” he said after a moment of staring 

“Like a drawing, a good con starts off with a concept, you could say a sketch,” Sketchy explained, “Then you refine it, clean up the edges and add details.”

Roach nodded, slowly getting it, “Yeah okay, that makes sense. You come up with an outline for the con and go from there, I get that.”

“Exactly, you get a plan of what you want and you figure out how to best achieve that, after you’ve figured out the details you execute your plan.”

“Okay,” Roach said, slowly starting to get it, “so like, a con is like a drawing with a point that you need get across?”

Sketchy stuck with comparing art to cons as he explained the ins and outs of a good scam while letting Roach draw connections between them on his own.

After the lesson Roach searched the classroom for any supplies he could use. Sadly they didn’t have any spray paint but he didn’t really expect there to be any. He did, however, find an empty sketchbook in the back of the supply closest and some fancy art pencils he could take with him.

He shoved it all in his bag before meeting up with Sketchy and Skeezy outside the classroom.

“Find anything useful?” Skeezy asked.

“Yup,” he nodded with a grin, “are we ready to go now?”

“We were just waiting on you,” Sketchy said, already starting to walk away, “And I was thinking, we should find some people to put what you learned to the test.”

Roach just nodded, trailing behind them while he and Skeezy started discussing how they should see if he actually learned anything from those lessons or not. 

He started to tune them out after a while though, getting distracted by the art right outside the classrooms before he spotted a fire alarm.

“Hey,” he stopped in front of it, “do ya think the backup generator powered the fire alarms?”

Sketchy and Skeezy barely had time to turn around to see what he was doing before Roach had his hand on the pull switch, triggering the alarm to go off. A very loud, jarring alarm.

“Oh shit! It Does!” he shouted, pulling away from it.

“Roach!” both Sketchy and Skeezy exclaimed, shock written on both their faces.

“Whoops,” he offered with a shrug of his shoulders.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for claustrophobia (not sure this is necessary but just to be safe!)

The house they were trying to set up camp in was small, cozy, and full of zombies. 

Roach swung his ax down into a zombies skull, spinning around just in time to hit another zombie. Two down however many more were left in the house to go.

The amount of slow zombies in this place made Roach assume this town probably got overrun completely on Day One. It was out of the way enough that it was virtually untouched, and that definitely wouldn’t have been the case if any survivors had spent time living here. Close-knit towns like this that didn’t figure out how to kill the Zs fast enough hadn’t really stood a chance. 

He cleared out the last few in the upstairs area and listened to the house around him, trying to hear for zombies or Sketchy and Skeezy. There wasn’t any noise in the house save for his own breathing.

“Y’all ain’t dead, are ya?” he called out down the stairs, forcing a bit of humor in his voice to push down the lingering eelings of dread. 

“No! We’re still alive!” Skeezy shouted from somewhere downstairs and Roach let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank god,” he muttered and made his way down to check in with them. Sketchy said earlier that since he had given Roach lessons on conning people it was about time that they planned a job he could be in on. One where he hopefully wouldn’t burn down a building or something.

So now they were in some middle-of-nowhere town a few miles away from some survival camp or something and they wanted to get a plan on how they were gonna go about scamming the inhabitants. 

His uncles were in the kitchen, already working out a plan when Roach got down the stairs. 

The kitchen island was covered in their supplies, minus what Roach had in his backpack, and Sketchy was outlining something on a piece of paper, Skeezy following along with what he was doing. They both glanced up for a second when he entered before quickly going back to the plan. 

Roach sat down on one of the barstools across from them and shifted to get more comfortable when he noticed the barstool moved with him. He shifted left and right experimentally, the stool top turning easily under him. 

He pushed the stool back from the island just enough so that his feet wouldn’t hit the side and spun around as fast as he could. He did that over and over again until he heard Sketchy clear his throat and Roach planted his feet back on the ground to stop himself.

“Cockroach, what are you doing?” Sketchy asked.

“Uh… Spinning? The chair… spins.” Roach shrugged and blinked as the world continued to spin around him. “So I was… spinning.”

“Aren’t you gonna get dizzy?” Skeezy asked, sounding like he was holding back a laugh. 

“Already am! Did y’all figure out a plan?”

Sketchy and Skeezy shared a look before nodding.

“More is less, we’ve got a couple ideas,” Sketchy started, pulling a piece of paper from the mess on the counter to straighten in front of him, “But since this is supposed to be your first official job with us, we want you to help us figure it out.”

Roach stood up and walked over to them, only stumbling a bit from dizziness, and looked over Sketchy’s shoulder.

“What plans?” he asked, a bit confused because he couldn’t understand what on earth they had been writing.

Sketchy began listing off their ideas, making sure Roach was still following along periodically. Some were a bit more more legitimate, like running a shooting contest if they could find good enough prizes as an incentive. Others were less so, such as passing off a hastily thrown-together mixture as an apocalypse cure-all. 

“Of course, we can always go with the tried-and-true route and run The Murphy scam,” Sketchy finished off.

Skeezy immediately made a face, “Oh no, no way! You are _not_ getting me to bite anyone ever again.”

Roach looked up and then at both of them in surprise and confusion.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Vernon, it wasn’t that bad,” Sketchy said with a chuckle, shaking his head.

“Not that bad?” Skeezy repeated in disbelief, “I couldn’t get the taste out of my mouth for a week!” he said, shuddering at the memory. 

What the fuck were they talking about?

“It’s a survivor's camp we’re headin’ to, right?” Roach interrupted their bickering. “I don’t think that yer Murphy scam would work on that many people, anyway,” he said, trying to be helpful.

Sketchy tapped a knuckle against the counter top. “You’ve got a point there, kid,” he said, the grin returning to his lips. “Besides, I’m leaning a bit towards Rainmaking, myself. Very old-school, but this place is in the middle of a very serious drought if what that hitchhiker we ran into said is true.”

Roach nodded slightly. “That’s the…” he paused, thinking back to Sketchy’s explanation before, “the one where we promise we can make it rain with science?”

“That’s the one!” Skeezy said, nodding eagerly. “Man, we haven’t run that since, must’ve been middle of Black Summer,” he mused. “Went real well until everyone realized it was no closer to raining.”

Sketchy shrugged. “We just stuck around too long. The trick is to get the payment, then get the hell outta Dodge while no one’s looking,” he said with a broad gesture.

“Sneak away at night?” Roach suggested. 

Sketchy smirked and pointed towards him. “Exactamundo, my friend. You’re a natural.”

A small smile crossed Roach’s face at the praise. “I think it’s a good plan, I say we do that one,” he said, nodding. 

Sketchy clapped his hands together. “It’s official then, Rainmaking it is!” he said. “We’ll take tonight to rest up and hash out the details, and tomorrow we’ll scour the town for supplies.”

__

Roach busted the lock to the mortuary door open and peered inside, it was empty as far as he could see and hear which was probably a good sign. He was told to try and find some chemicals for them to launch into the air and mortuaries usually had some sort of supply room with chemicals. Or was that a morgue? What was the difference anyways?

Whatever, he didn’t have time to think about that. He needed to search the place and get out in time to meet back with Sketchy and Skeezy. They had insisted they meet back at a specific time if Roach was going to go off on his own. 

He shifted his axe for a better grip and slowly crept inside, shutting the door behind him. He kept his ears open and looked around, so far so good. Time to check out the first room for what they needed. And hopefully he would fine everything they needed without much trouble here. He wasn’t sure what kind of chemicals would be a part of making it rain, but he figured that went for most people in the apocalypse. They just needed to be convincing and sound like they knew what they were doing. There wasn’t exactly much chance of there being a scientist in the camp. 

He searched a few rooms and came up mostly empty handed save for a jug of some kinda powder with a long name he couldn’t pronounce that may work for what they needed, as well as some tubing that may just come in handy down the road.

On his way out, Roach had the brilliant luck of stumbling into a table topped with a tall vase as he attempted to carry the coil of tubes and the heavy jar. The vase tumbled to the floor with an ear splitting crash. One of the doors that had been locked on his initial check suddenly burst off his hinges, a swarm of zombies streaming out, as if awakened by the noise. 

There were way too many zombies for him to handle on his own and they had their sights set on him immediately. They blocked the way he had came and he dropped everything in his arms, sprinting towards the back of the building. Maybe he could escape through a window or something. 

He skidded, nearly falling face-first, into a dead-end room full of displayed coffins. The room had no window and he had to think fast, so he jumped into the nearest coffin and shut himself in it, doing his best to hold the lid closed from the outside. 

As the undead zeroed in on the coffin he hid in he tried not to panic, holding the lid as tight as he could while praying to himself that he wouldn’t die and that his uncles would find him. 

A loud cry tore from his throat as a particular hard shove from a zombie made the coffin wobble on its base and almost tip over. The zombies scratched at the wood, rattling the lid as they tried to get to him.

It felt like the walls of the wooden box were closing in on him, the air felt thinner like it was running out and he started to hyperventilate. His heart pounded in his ears as the coffin got knocked into again, his grip on the lid was slipping and once he let go he knew it would be all over for him. His fingers ached with the effort to keep a grip on the inside lining of the box, his fingernails digging in so hard it hurt. 

He was gonna die here. He was gonna die in a dark, tiny box that usually held corpses, while a bunch of actual corpses killed him. It was so ironic that it woulda been funny if it weren’t for how terrified he was. 

The lid to the coffin was nearly jerked open and Roach tried to pull it back shut, failing to hold back a panicked sob. 

He couldn’t die without one last fight. 

The lid was ripped open out of his hands and he shut his eyes against the sudden light and reared his fist to try and get at least one good hit in before he was bit. His fist connected with something and it let out an almost human shout.

He made another move to fight back but was stopped by someone shouting.

“Wait, it's me! It’s me, you’re okay!” and he was pulled out of the coffin, “You’re okay, Roach.” His feet hit the floor but his knees didn’t support him, the only thing keeping him from crumbling to the ground being the tight hug he was pulled into. 

The world slowly came back into focus and Roach slowly realized he was being hugged by Sketchy. He didn’t care what was going on. He was still so scared and Sketchy was here. He was okay. 

“It’s okay,” Sketchy said, patting his back, “C’mon, let’s get you back to camp, alright?”

Roach just nodded, not trusting himself to speak just yet. When they pulled apart, he looked around the room, seeing it was mostly empty save for Skeezy standing in the doorway with a look of concern on his face. In the back of his mind he wondered where the zombies went but he decided he didn’t want to know and would rather get back to their hideout.

__

Roach’s hands were still shaking when they got back to their temporary home, his heartbeat still a bit too hard against his ribs. He made a b-line for the nearest place to sit- the couch- and crumbled into it. 

He took a shaky breath, pulling his knees into his his chest and tangling his fingers into his hair. He could hear Sketchy and Skeezy talking quietly to each other, but couldn’t bring himself to even try and focus on their words.

Part of him didn’t understand why he still felt as frightened as he did. He’d had near-death experiences before, probably more than a kid his age should, but none had quite affected him the way this had. He could almost still hear the pounding, the scraping on the wooden outside of the coffin echoing in his ears…

A sound made him jump, and it took him a second to realize it was his own whimper. He was startled slightly again when he felt a hand gently grip his shoulder.

“You okay, Roach?” Skeezy asked, his tone purposefully light.

Roach glanced up for half a second, clearing his throat and swiping at his eyes. He shook his head slightly, but still made a bit of an attempt to compose himself, letting his feet fall heavily off the couch and onto the floor. 

Sketchy stepped over to his other side, squatting down to Roach’s level, uncharacteristic concern on his face. “Wanna talk about it, kid? What happened?”

For a moment he tried to answer. His elbows fell down onto his knees, covering his face with his hands and he just shook his head instead. Sketchy just patted his shoulder gently, standing and sharing soft words with Skeezy he didn’t bother listening to.

The weight on the couch shifted on either side of him as they sat down next to him.

Sketchy rested an arm over his shoulder. “Hey, did we ever tell you about the first time we pulled a Rainmaking con?” he asked.

Roach partially uncovered his face, slightly confused, and shook his head.

And so Sketchy began recounting with his usual bravado the tale of how he fooled a small town in Connecticut into thinking he could bring them rain in the middle of Black Summer, Skeezy coming in every now and then to add to the story. Roach only half-listened, but it distracted him enough to where he unfolded himself, leaning back into the couch, Sketchy’s arm still slung over his shoulders.

Sketchy had already moved onto another slightly-embellished story when Roach noticed his eyelids feeling heavy. All the panic and adrenaline had sucked the energy out of him, and the familiar voices in his ear were comforting.

His head fell against Sketchy’s shoulder and he felt the man’s chest rise and fall in a soft laugh before he finally drifted off. 

—-

Roach woke up slowly, wondering where the hell he was until the events from the day before came back to him. He quickly realized that he was smooshed between Sketchy and Skeezy, his head still resting against Sketchy’s shoulder. Both of them were still asleep and Roach tried to untangle himself from the cuddle pile they had ended up in, causing them both to stir. 

Skeezy yawned loudly, moving his arm from where it had been stretched out behind Roach, his fingers tangled in Sketchy’s hair. Sketchy grumbled and tried to keep the contact before snapping awake. Roach rubbed his eyes and pretended not to notice while trying to wake up some more.

“Do we have any water?” he asked as they all woke up, rubbing a spot where his hand had fallen asleep. 

“Yeah, Cockroach, hold on,” Sketchy said, patting his shoulder and getting up from the couch.

“It’s just Roach,” Roach said back on instinct. He was still a bit out of it but he was doing a lot better than he was the night before.

Speaking of which…

“Hey,” he started when Sketchy came back with a water bottle, “How did y’all… how’d y’all find me?”

Sketchy and Skeezy shared a look and then shrugged.

“You were twenty minutes late getting back here, we got worried and went looking for you.” Sketchy shrugged. Roach blinked. Twenty minutes? Is that how long he had been in the coffin? It felt a lot longer and much shorter at the same time. “Found a place with a lot of zombies swarming it and figured you were there.”

Skeezy nodded. “I lead the Zs off, found a room I was able to lock them into,” he added. 

“Oh,” Roach felt oddly relieved to hear that. Was it bad he liked hearing they were worried about him? Maybe, but it still made him feel a bit safer. “Well, thanks…”

“Well, we can’t have you dying before your first con, now can we?” Sketchy grinned but there was something about his tone that sounded off.

There was a beat of silence before Skeezy spoke up.

“So, if you’re up to telling us, what happened back there? You were… you were pretty shaken up,” Skeezy asked.

Roach paused and shrugged, “I… I just got trapped by zombies. I don’t know why it freaked me out so much…”

Neither of them said a word but Skeezy silently sat back down beside him to encourage him to keep talking. He sighed and decided to start over.

“I was lookin’ for some chemicals for the con and as I was leavin’, the door got busted down by a pack a Zs… I was gonna try ‘n get out of there from a window but I guess I chose the wrong room, ‘cause there were no windows to climb through. Had to jump in a coffin and… and, I-” Roach shuddered at the memory and willed himself not to get freaked out again. It was over and he was safe, his uncles found him just in time and he was fine. “And maybe I’m just claustrophobic or something cause it really freaked me out… All those zombies tryin’ to get in at me…” he let out a shaky laugh, “But, I’m fine now. Y’all found me and saved my ass, so I’m fine now.”

Maybe if he kept reassuring himself he was fine he would actually believe it. Maybe the echo of nails scraping and fists pounding on wood would finally leave his brain. 

“So, did y’all have a good supply run?” Roach asked, trying to change the subject, “Find what we need?”

“We did!” Sketchy clapped his hands together before heading back into the kitchen, “You’re gonna love this, kid.”

“What is it?” he asked, trying to look into the kitchen.

“Well, you know how we have to send the chemicals into the sky, right?”

“Uh, yeah, right.” 

“How do you think we’re sending the chemicals up there?” Sketchy came back in the living room with a bag in his hand.

“Uh… did y’all find an airplane?”

“What- no! No… huh…” Sketchy stopped, probably trying to figure out a way to get an airplane or what stunt they could pull if they had one. He shook his head after a moment. “No, we found something you’ll enjoy.”

Roach watched him pull a box out of the bag and he almost fell off the couch.

“Y’all got fireworks?!” Roach shouted, “And we get to use ‘em for a con?!”

“You bet, and you’re gonna light them.”

“Awesome,” Roach whispered in awe with a grin threatening to split his face. This con was gonna be amazing.

Sketchy looked at Skeezy while Roach took the fireworks from him and looked it over.

Skeezy leaned over to whisper in his partner’s ear. “Y’know, maybe giving him these is a bad idea…” 

__

They were all packed up and ready to travel to that survivors camp. His uncles were doing one last sweep through of their temporary base before they left while Roach was making sure everything would fit in the truck they commandeered a while back.

Roach stopped for a moment, running his fingers across the knot he just tied and thought.

‘His uncles’... 

When had he started thinking of them like that? Was it at the resort? Did… did he really think of them as uncles? 

Was he okay with seeing them like that?

He must’ve gotten lost in thought for a while cause suddenly the truck started and Sketchy stuck his head out the driver’s side window.

“You okay, Cockroach?” he asked with an amused grin.

“Just Roach,” he retorted before climbing in the back seat, deciding that yes, he was definitely okay with it. “Yeah, I am, let’s go.”


End file.
